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Conf- 


THE CHURCH AND 


CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 


G 


American Section 


Report of Commission V 
to 


THE UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN CONFERENCE 
ON LIFE AND WORK 


HELD IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 
August 19-30, 1925 





UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN CONFERENCE 
ON LIFE AND WORK 


Commission Reports 


I. The Church’s Obligation in View of 
God’s Purpose for the World. 


II. The Church and Economic and Industrial 
Problems. 


III. The Church and Social and Moral Prob- 
lems. 


IV. The Church and International Relations. 


V. The Church and Education. 


VI. Methods of Co-operative and Federative 
Efforts By the Christian Communions. 





GENERAL PREFACE 


A few words should be written about the inception of The Universal 
Christian Conference on Life and Work. In the summer of 1919 the 
International Committee of the World Alliance for International Friend- 
ship Through the Churches met at The Hague. This was the first meet- 
ing of an international character held after the signing of the Armistice, 
if one excepts a small gathering of labor leaders. About sixty leaders of 
the Churches were present, representing nearly all the Protestant Com- 
munions and most of the countries of Europe. Ten or twelve delegates 
were present from America. 


The meetings at The Hague developed so sweet and reasonable an 
atmosphere, at a time when great bitterness prevailed everywhere, and 
the delegates present expressed themselves so strongly as to the un- 
Christian character of war and the necessity of establishing a world order 
on a new and Christian basis, that several of the delegates felt strongly 
that the time had come for the Churches officially to get together and 
say what these Churchmen semi-officially were saying. As a result 
Archbishop Soederblom of Sweden, Dr. Charles S. Macfarland of 
America, the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Henry A. Atkinson and others 
held an informal meeting to discuss the possibility of bringing the 
Churches of the world together for a Conference, where the Churches 
could utter their united conviction on international matters and all other 
matters with which society would have to deal in the reconstruction of 
civilization and the building of a new and better civilization on the 
ruins of the old, which lay all about them. 


This preliminary meeting was not altogether spontaneous for on two 
separate occasions during the progress of the war, Archbishop Soeder- 
blom had communicated with the Churches of Europe and America re- 
garding the possibility of such a conference and the Federal Council of 
Churches of Christ in America had suggested that a Conference of the 
Federated bodies of Churches in all the countries might meet together 
after the war. The unanimous opinion of the unofficial group at The 
Hague was that a committee should be appointed to bring the leaders of 
the Churches together with the aim of convincing them of the necessity 
of such a world gathering of the Churches ,and asking them to take the 
matter up with their respective denominations. This committee went 
from The Hague to Paris and brought together as many of the leaders 
of the Churches as possible upon such short notice. This meeting be- 
came greatly interested in the project and requested Dr. Frederick Lynch, 
Chairman of the Committee on Ecumenical Conference of the Federal 
Council of Churches of Christ in America to arrange for a preliminary 
meeting of the Churches the following summer. 


Dr. Lynch proceeded from Paris to London and had several inter- 
views with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. F. B. Myers, Dr. Thomas 
Nightingale, Dr. J. H. Shakespeare and others. Meantime, Archbishop 
Soderbloom undertook to interest the Scandinavian Churches and Dr. Choisy 


III 


the Swiss Churches. Sufficient interest was aroused to warrant the calling 
of a preliminary Conference at Geneva in the summer of 1920. 


As a result of the procedures recorded above, one hundred delegates 
assembled at Geneva in August of 1920. A three days session was held 
and the Conference gradually began to assume shape. Great interest 
was manifested and all present expressed themselves to the effect that 
the Church Universal had a gréat opportunity to exert a determining 
influence upon the new order that must follow the war. Furthermore 
the world was waiting for some great pronouncement from the Churches 
upon such questions as war and peace, the industrial order; such im- 
mediate problems as those having to do with intemperance and vice 
and upon all ethical and moral questions. It was felt that a positive 
and commanding utterance of the Churches in these trying years would 
do much to encourage a disheartened world and would make it much 
easier for those who were trying to reconstruct the world on a Christian 
basis to carry on this high task. There was much confusion in the world 
as to just where the Church did stand on these great problems disturbing 
the minds of men. The conviction was expressed that only as the rule 
of life laid down by the gospels became the law of nations could any 


hope for security and peace be found or the great sores of the world be 
healed. 


Furthermore it was felt by all that whatever new international ma- 
chinery might be set up or whatever new industrial order might arise, 
it was only as these were permeated by the spirit of Jesus Christ that 
they would fulfill the high hopes of their founders. It was also strongly 
felt that two great blessings might ensue from such a Conference. On 
the one hand all individual communions would profit by this period of 
common intercourse, especially those communions that had greatly 
suffered from the war. They would be made strong in the conscious- 
ness of the oneness of all Christ’s disciples. On the other hand the 
coming together, if only for a month, of all the Churches of the world, 
to cooperate in the common task of redeeming the world order, and to 
make some great common pronouncement on the place of Christ in our 
civilization would be a great object lesson to the world. 


At Geneva a large International Committee was set up which was 
divided into four groups, one for America, one for the British Empire, 
one for the European Protestant churches and the fourth representing the 
Orthodox Eastern Church. The International Committee appointed a 
smaller Executive Committee, which held three meetings in successive 
years, one at Peterborough, England, one at Zurich, Switzerland and 
one at Amsterdam, Holland. In August, 1922, the International Com- 
mittee itself met at Helsingborg, Sweden, and was very fully attended 
by delegates from all the communions and nations. At this meeting: 
the programme for the Conference assumed final shape. It was voted 


that the program for Stockholm should include the following groups 
of subjects: 


IV 


~ 


The Church’s Obligation in view of God’s purpose for the world. 

The Church and Economic and Industrial Problems. 

The Church and Social and Moral Problems. 

The Church and International Relations. 

The Church and Christian Education. 

Methods of Co-operative and Federative Efforts by the Christian 
Communions. 


a De te 


The reports which followed are in fulfillment of this vote taken at 
Helsingborg. In April, 1924, the full Committee met again at Birming- 
ham, England, in connection with C. O. P. E. C. and reviewed the 
progress made upon the reports and dealt specifically with plans for the 
Stockholm meeting. 


This is in brief the history of The Universal Christian Conference on 
Life and Work, and is the explanation of the reports which follow. 
These reports have been prepared with great care by the leaders of the 
Churches and by experts in the several questions discussed. They are 
submitted to the Conference in the hope that the Conference will receive 
them in the same spirit in which they have been written, i.e. in the 
endeavor to find the common consciousness of the Churches upon these 
subjects and to voice its united feeling. 





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LIST OF COMMISSION MEMBERS 


Chairman 


REV. WILLIAM ADAMS BROWN, D.D., Ph.D. 
Professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. 


Secretary 


REV. SAMUEL McCRAE CAVERT 
General Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. 


Members 


ANDERSON, REV. STONEWALL, D.D. 
Secretary of Education, Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 


BAKER, REV. JAMES CHAMBERLAIN, D.D. 
Head of Wesley Foundation, University of Illinois. 


BAUSLIN, REV. CHARLES &S., D.D. 
College Secretary of Board of Education of Lutheran Church in America. 


BREWBAKER, REV. CHARLES W., Ph.D. 


oscar oe Secretary, Sunday School and Brotherhood Office, United Brethren in 
rist. 


BROWN, CHANCELLOR ELMER E., Ph.D., LL.D. 
Chancellor of New York University. 


BROWN, REV. WILLARD DAYTON, D.D. 
General Secretary, Board of Education Reformed Church in America. 


BURTON, PROFESSOR ERNEST de WITT, D.D. 
Professor of New Testament Literature and Interpretation, University of Chicago. 


BUTTERFIELD, PRESIDENT KENYON L., LL.D. 
President of Massachusetts Agricultural College. 


COFFIN, REV. HENRY SLOANE, D.D. 
Pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. 


COGSWELL, FRANKLIN D. 


Educational Secretary of Missionary Education Movement of the United States 
and Canada. 


CURRELL, PRESIDENT WILLIAM S§S., Ph.D., LL.D. 
President of University of South Carolina. 


CUTLER, MISS ETHEL 


Secretary for Religious Education, Education and Research Division, National 
Board of Y.W.C.A. 


EWING, ROBERT L. ead 
Secretary, International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations. 


GARDNER, REV. WILLIAM E., D.D. 


Executive Secretary of Department of Religious Education of Protestant Episcopal 
Cnurch. 


VII 


HERRICK, PRESIDENT CHEESMAN A., Ph.D., LL.D. 
President of Girard College. 


HILL, REV. EDGAR P., D.D., LL.D. ; 
General Secretary, General Board of Education of Presbyterian Church in U. S. A. 


JONES, REV. THOMAS JESSE, Ph.D. 
Educational Director, Phelps Stokes Fund. - 


KELLY, PRESIDENT ROBERT LINCOLN, LL.D. 
Executive Secretary, Council of Church Boards of Education. 


KING, PRESIDENT HENRY CHURCHILL, D.D., LL.D. 
President of Oberlin College. 


KNAPP, MISS MARY 


MACKENZIE, PRESIDENT WILLIAM DOUGLAS, D.D., LL.D. 
President Hartford Seminary Foundation. 


MEYER, REV. HENRY H., D.D. 
Editor of Sunday School Publications of Methodist Episcopal Church. 


MOTON, MAJOR ROBERT R., LL.D. 
Principal of Tuskegee Institute. 


PADELFORD, REV. FRANK W., D.D. 
Corresponding Secretary, Board of Education, Northern Baptist Convention. 


PENDLETON, PRESIDENT ELLEN F., Litt.D., LL.D. 
President of Wellesley College. 


RICHARDS, PROFESSOR GEORGE W., D.D. 
President of Theological Seminary of the Reformed Churches in U.S. 


SAILER, T. H. P., Ph.D. 
Honorary Educational Advisor, Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church 
in the U. S. A. and Associate in Religious Education at Teachers’ College, Colum- 
bia University. 


SHELDON, REV. FRANK MILTON, D.D. 
General Secretary of Congregational Educational Society. 


SNYDER, PRESIDENT HENRY NELSON, D.D., D.Litt. 
President of Wofford College. 


SWEETS, REV. HENRY H., D.D., LL.D. 
Secretary, Board of Education and Ministerial Relief, Presbyterian Church in U. S. 


THOMPSON, PRESIDENT WILLIAM O., D.D., LL.D. 
President Ohio State University. 


TILLETT, DEAN WILBUR FISK, D.D., LL.D. 
Professor of Christian Doctrine and Dean Emeritus, Vanderbilt University. 


- 


TIPPLE, PRESIDENT EZRA S., D.D., LL.D. 
President of Drew Theological Seminary. 


WEIGLE, PROFESSOR LUTHER A., Ph.D., D.D. 
Professor of Christian Nurture, Yale University. 


VIll 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


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The relations of religion and education constitute a world-wide 
problem of the utmost significance. 


2. The secularization of education in America. 
3. World-wide causes responsible for the secularization of education. 
4. Causes for the secularization of education which are especially 
characteristic of America. 
5. The purpose of this report 
I. The Educational Function of the Christian Church.....WW.W2.W...- = 2 
1. The essential place of religion in education. 
2. The educational conception of the Christian Church. 
3. The educational work of the Church includes: 
a. The religious nurture of individuals. 
b. Training for Christian leadership in institutions of 
higher education. 
c. The lifting of the Christian life above the level of habit 
and custom to the level of intelligence. 
Eee Papa tancduontine the United, states sae = 3 
1. America’s policy of public education. 
2. The enrollment in the public schools. 
3. The enrichment of the public school curriculum. 
4. Professor Dewey’s theory of education. 
5. The omission of religion from American public schools. 
6. The danger involved in the secularization of public education 
7. Experiments in the correlation of religious education with 
public education. 
8. The duty of the churches with respect to the public schools 
The religious influence of public school teachers. 
III. The Present Status of Church Schools in the United States... 8 


1. The freedom of the churches to maintain schools. 


2. Parochial schools. 
a. Elementary parochial schools. 
b. Secondary parochial schools. 
c. The educational theory of the Roman Catholic Church. 


d. The possibility of understanding between Catholic and 
Protestant. 


IX 


3. The Sunday schools of the Nineteenth Century. 


a. 
b. 


Cc: 


Their lack of gradation. 
The International Uniform Lesson system. 
(1) Is not pupil-centered. 


(2) Does not provide a proper basis for the study 
of the Bible. 


(3) Neglects important materials of religious educa- 
tion. 


(4) Does not provide for Christian education through 
active service. 


The Sunday school and other voluntary organizations. 


4. The church schools of the Twentieth Century. 


a. An educational awakenine in the churches. 

b. The new type of church schools. 

c. The experiential character of the church school cur- 
ricula. 

d. The inclusive character of the church school organiza- 
tion. 

5. The Christian family. 

a. The educational function of the family. 

b. pes essential relation between Christianity and family 
ife. 

c. Changing conditions which render family life more 
difficult. 

d. Modern attacks upon the family. 

e. The interest of the Church in the maintainance and 
enrichment of ,Christian family life. 

IV. The Church and Higher > ducation 22.23 Bi 


1. The historical relation of the churches and the colleges. 


2. Three types of colleges and universities. 


a. 
b. 


GC. 


Colleges and universities in <lirect relation with re- 
ligious bodies. 


Colleges and universities privately endowed and 
controlled. 


State colleges and universities. 


3. The secularization of the colleges. 


4. Problems with respect to religion which are common to all 
types of colleges and universities. 


a. 


b. 


The moral welfare of the students. 


The place of religious worship in the corporate life of 
the institution. 

The place of religion in the college and university 
curriculum. 

Religious activity as an extra-curriculum voluntary 
interest of students. 


The personal character and religious faith of the 
members. of the faculty. 


5S. Problems with respect to religion which are peculiar to 
each of the three types of college and university. 


a. 
b. 
c: 


Problems of the church college or university. 
Problems of the private college or university. 
Problems of the state college or university. 


Xx 


Page 


in 


17 


Meee crnurch Lraining Its Ministers W.-C ee ae 
1. Protestant theological seminaries in the United States. 

The curricula of the seminaries. 

The need for a functional reorganization of the curriculum. 

The field work of theological students. 

Different types of theological seminaries. 


The contribution of the seminaries to higher education. 


NAw pwn 


The movement toward Christian unity and cooperation 
through the seminaries. 


8 The relation of theological seminaries to universities. 


Bere Ree UTC: Onis Pupie. ChiniOn 62. 26 


1. The force of public opinion in America. 


a. In view of the facts of social psychology. : 
b. In view of the political organization of the republic. 
c. In view of the separation of Church and State. 


2. Agencies which determine public opinion. 
The menace of propaganda. 


4. The Church’s interest in public questions. 
a. Concerning industry. 
b. Concerning race problems. 
c. Concerning moral relations. 
d. Concerning international relations. 


5. The Church’s equipment to learn the facts and determine 
the truth. 


6. The Church’s means of influencing public opinion. 


a. Through the local church. 
b. Through denominational effort. 
c. Through interdenominational effort. 


7. The need for cooperation of the churches, and the growth 
of the spirit of cooperative education. 


Wile . ieee mirene and international Education... 6 «92 
1. The new consciousness of interdependence. 
2. War as the common enemy of all mankind. 


3. The development of international good-will through the 
public schools. 
a. Defects of existing materials and methods. 
b. The new dangers of propaganda. 
c. Promoting good-will through the schools. 


4. The development of world friendship through the churches 
and church schools. 


5. The need of an international agency for Christian education. 


The call to Christian unity from the childhood and youth 
of the world. 
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THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 


The issues involved in the mutual relations of religion and education 
confront the present generation with a problem that is world-wide and 
of the utmost significance. Some keen observers think that the growing 
divorce between education and religion is one of the primary causes for 
the present distraught condition of the world, and that unless education 
can again be inspired by religious motives, and religion be given a place 
in education, under the new conditions of modern life and in the light 
of modern science, comparable with that which religion once held, human 
civilization is in danger of further disaster and ultimate ruin. It is 
to be hoped that, just as the Nineteenth Century has been marked by a 
great awakening of the Christian churches to their missionary oppor- 
tunity and responsibility, the Twentieth Century may be marked by a 
like awakening in Christian education. 


America is a land of churches and of schools. Most of its citizens 
profess religion and desire education. Yet in America, as throughout 
the world, a relative secularization of education has taken place within 
the last hundred years. The control of the schools has passed from the 
hands of the churches into those of the State; and religion has been 
almost’ wholly eliminated from the program and curriculum of public 
education. 


This movement is due in part to causes which are world-wide. Among 
these causes are the rise and development of nationalism in education; 
the growth of the spirit, ideals and institutions of democracy; the rapid 
progress of invention and discovery, and the expansion of the sciences 
and arts; the utilitarianism and materialism consequent upon the in- 
dustrial revolution; and the jealous sectarianism of the churches them- 
selves. 


Other causes are especially characteristic of America: the newness of 
the country, the relative lack of tradition, and the existence, until re- 
cently, of a frontier; the heterogeneity of the population; the complete 
religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States; 
the multiplicity of religious sects and denominations which has result- 
ed from that freedom; and the absolute separation of Church and State 
which is a fundamental principle of our political organization and cor- 
porate life. These causes have tended to accelerate movements toward 
the secularization of education which in Europe have been somewhat 
checked by the force of old customs and traditions and by the 
established connections of Church and State. 

America’s problems, therefore, with respect to the mutual relations of 
religion and education, are in some respects like, and in other respects 
unlike, those of our European brethren. It is the purpose of this report 
simply to set forth the more outstanding of these problems as a basis 
for discussion and the exchange of experience. 


Par ee 
I. The Educational Function of the Christian Church 


As Christians, we doubtless agree that religion is an essential part of 
education. The tragic issues of the past decade have made it clear that 
unless the development of intelligence and the increasing control of 
natural forces be animated by the spirit of good-will, and unless the 
growing knowledge of particular facts be integrated in a Christian view 
of the universe and of life, education may become the instrument of 
degeneration, even of destruction, rather than of human welfare and 
progress. Quite aside from the question as to whether or not the 
Church should undertake the maintenance of schools, it is clearly the 
Church’s duty to endeavor, in one way or another, to contribute 
Christian principles and motives to the whole of education, and to in- 
spire it with Christian ideals. 


In a general but vital sense, indeed, the whole life and work of the 
Christian Church may be conceived in educational terms. The Church 
exists for the purpose for which its Master came, that men might have 
life and have it more abundantly. The primary interest of the Church 
is in persons; its concern is for the enrichment of their experience, the 
development of their character, and the quality of their service as free, 
responsible, cooperative members of the human race. In the power of 
the Spirit of God, the Church undertakes the regeneration of society 
through the regeneration and Christian education of individuals. 


In a more direct and particular sense, the educational work of the 
Christian Church includes at least these major aspects: 


(1) The fostering of growth in grace as the individual’s powers 
mature and his experience widens and deepens. This includes both the 
Christian nurture and education of children, and provision for the re- 
ligious growth and development of young people and adults. 


(2) The fitting of young people, through institutions of higher edu- 
cation, for service in places of initiative, responsibility and leadership. 
This includes both the education in colleges and universities of laymen 
and laywomen generally, and the training in theological seminaries and 
similar schools of those who, as ordained ministers or as lay workers, 
will enter the direct service of the Church. 


(3) The lifting of the Christian life above the level of habit and 
custom to the level of intelligence. This includes the intelligent under- 
standing of the Church’s own convictions, as these are grounded in the 
life and teachings of Jesus; the discovery of new truth and the under- 
standing of the witness of the Spirit in the life of today; the application 
of Christian principles to the ever-new problems of changing civiliza- 
tion; the training of church members to render intelligent and effective 
service in the various fields of their opportunity; and the creation and 


maintenance among folk generally of a sound, true and effective public 
Opinion, 


Bek ce 
II. Public Education in the United States 


Provision for education is a matter of public policy in the United 
States. From the first, American statesmen have recognized the essen- 
tial relation of education to political democracy. Education is a neces- 
sary qualification for the fulfillment of the duties of citizenship where 
government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 
“Promote then,” said President Washington in his Farewell Address, 
“as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffus- 
ion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives 
force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be 
enlightened.” 

In fulfillment of this policy the states have developed systems of public 
schools which have very largely displaced private and parochial schools 
in the elementary and secondary grades. These public schools are 
maintained by general taxation, from which no one is excused on the 
plea of conscientious objection or dissent from public educational policy. 
They are open, free of tuition charges, to all the children of all the 
people. Compulsory education laws, moreover, require parents and 
guardians to see to it that their children are educated. 


Yet there is a remarkable degree of freedom in America’s educational 
policy. There is no provision with respect to education in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and there is no nationally controlled system of 
education—there are some, indeed, who feel that more should be done 
by the national government to promote education than has hitherto been 
attempted. The control of public education is in the hands of the 
states; and the various states differ in the degree to which they enforce 
standards upon the school authorities of local communities. Private 
schools and parochial schools are not forbidden, and attendance upon 
these schools is construed as a fulfillment of the compulsory education 
law. Further, these private and parochial schools are in many states 
practically unsupervised by the public authorities. Parents are free to 
send their children to public, private or parochial schools, as they may 
choose, or even to employ private tutors. One state (Oregon) recently 
passed a law compelling attendance at the public schools; but that law 
was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of that State. 


Nearly 20,000,000 pupils are enrolled in the elementary public schools; 
and a little more than 1,500,000 in private and parochial schools of 
elementary grade. Public schools of secondary grade have multiplied 
and grown astonishingly during the past fifty years. In 1870 there 
were about 500 free public high schools in this country; now there are 
more than 16,000 with an enrollment of over 2,000,000 pupils. The 
relative number of those attending private secondary schools has been 
steadily decreasing. As late as 1890 about one-third of the pupils attend- 
ing secondary schools were in private institutions. Now 92 per cent. 
of the pupils attending schools of secondary grade are in the free public 
high schools. 


s/t eee 


The principle of free public education has been extended in this 
country even to institutions of higher education. In most states a 
state university is maintained at public expense, free of tuition charges 
to the children of citizens of that commonwealth; in some states there 
are other tax-supported institutions of college grade, notably colleges of 
agriculture and colleges for the training of teachers. About 40 per cent. 
of the college and university students of the country are enrolled in 
these public institutions. 

This system of public schools and colleges constitutes as a whole a 
great and daring experiment in public education. It is one of the most 
characteristic and impressive features of American life. The amount of 
schooling received by the average American child has more than 
doubled in the last fifty years. More than that, the curriculum of pub- 
lic education has been greatly enriched. The public schools of today 
touch children’s lives and influence their development at many more 
points than the schools of fifty years ago. The growth of knowledge 
and the application of science to the various fields of human industry; 
the development of invention, manufacture and commerce; the social 
and economic changes involved in the industrial revolution and in the 
massing of population in cities; and the correlative changes in home 
life, have opened to the schools new avenues of service and thrown upon 
them new duties. 

In the elementary and secondary public schools of the better sort of 
today children learn not only reading, writing and arithmetic, 'the 
languages, and the traditional subjects of literature, history, and geo- 
graphy, but the physical and biological sciences and their applications; 
cooking, sewing, and household economy; carpentering and cabinet- 
making; metal working, forging, and the use and care of machinery; 
gardening, agriculture, dairying and stock-raising; stenography, type- 
writing, bookkeeping, and the economics of business; journalism and 
printing; drawing and painting, modeling and decorating; music, danc- 
ing, dramatic expression, and public speaking; gymnastics, athletics, 
physical education, personal hygiene, and the principles of public health. 
The fact is that under present conditions, we are relying upon these 
schools to afford to children much in the way of sense experience, 
motor training, and moral discipline which under simpler social condi- 
tions was afforded to children by the incidental contacts of everyday 
life in the home and the community. 

Perhaps no better formula could be found to express this widening 
of the functions and enrichment of the curriculum of our schools than is 
embodied in the statement that the schools of today constitute a fairly 
faithful transcript or reproduction, on a small scale, of life itself. The 
schools are no longer mere instruments of drill in the clerical arts or 
transmitters of a conventional heritage of book knowledge; they con- 
stitute rather the fundamental means whereby society as a whole 
undertakes to reproduce itself and to shape its own progress. Educa- 
tion, the wisest of men have long said, is not a mere preparation for 
life; it is life itself. The schools of today have largely caught that 


akat ye 


vision, and are seeking to realize it in their work. The field of their 
activity is as broad as life. Theoretically, no human interest or occupa- 
tion lies without their purview. Practically, their failure to take 
account of any such interest or occupation is presumptive evidence of its 
lack of worth or importance. 


No one has done more to interpret the educational significance of the 
changed conditions of modern life, and to formulate ideals for the school 
under these changed conditions, than John Dewey. His writings on 
the philosophy of education have been and are of profound influence in 
America, and its work has more or less directly inspired the training of 
many of the teachers in our schools. For Dewey, education faces toward 
the future rather than toward the past. It is the process whereby society 
reproduces its own life, perpetuates its interests and ideals, shapes its 
future, and ensures its progress. The end of education is not merely 
knowledge or power, but social efficiency, which includes, in a democratic 
society, the development of initiative, responsibility, and good-will. 
Such social efficiency, Dewey maintains, can be acquired only by actual 
participation in the life and activities of a democratic society. It is the 
business of the school, therefore, to foster such a society and to induce 
such participation on the part of children. The school should thus be 
a miniature world of real experiences, real opportunities, real interests, 
and real social relations. It must, of course, be a world simplified and 
suited to the active powers of children; it must be a world, moreover, 
widened, balanced, purified, and rightly proportioned as compared with 
the particular section of the grown-up world that lies immediately with- 
out its bounds; it is a world, again, which contains a teacher who is at 
once leader, inspirer, interpreter, and friend. But it is a real world 
which reflects the fundamental, truer interests and values of the world 
without. Within this school-world children learn by working rather 
than merely by listening or reading; develop originality, initiative, re- 
sponsibilty, and self-control by engaging in projects which call forth 
those qualities; and fit themselves for life by living and working to- 
gether in cooperative, mutually helpful relations. 


In one respect, however, neither the actual public schools of America 
nor the schools of Professor Dewey’s educational theory are true to the 
life which they seek to transcribe, or to the society which it is their 
function to reproduce.—They omit religion. With the exception of the 
reading of a few verses from the Bible and the recital of the Lord’s 
prayer in some states and communities, the teaching of religion has 
disappeared from the public schools of this country; and the program 
and curriculum of these schools afford no conscious recognition of the 
part that religion has played and is playing in the life of humanity. As 
for Professor Dewey’s theory, his book on “Democracy and Education” 
contains but one explicit reference to religion, and that is a reference 
to what the author regards as the conflict of religious with scientific 
interests, 

This situation would seem impossible if it were not true. Yet it does 
not mean that the American people are indifferent or hostile to religion, 


taal 


or that there has been a purposed movement to take religion out of our 
schools. The secularization of public education in America has been 
incidental rather than purposed. It has been a by-product of the work- 
ing out of the principle of public responsibility for education and the 
principle of religous freedom under the conditions, which have been 
noted above. Whenever a minority, or even an individual, has chosen 
to object, on what are averred to be conscientious grounds, to some 
religious element in the program or curriculum of the public schools, 
that element has forthwith been eliminated, and no other religious 
element has taken its place. The result of nearly one hundred and fifty 
years of this process has been to strip the public schools almost com- 
pletely of direct religious teaching and religious worship. 


This situation is fraught with danger. The omission of religion from 
the program of public education inevitably conveys a negative sugges- 
tion. Our children cannot help but notice the omission; and unless 
something be done, to correct it, they will in time conclude that religion 
is negligible or unimportant or out of relation to life. 


As the public schools enlarge their scope, this negative suggestion 
becomes stronger. When the public schools concerned themselves with 
but a fraction of life, as they did a generation ago—when they did little 
more than drill children in the clerical arts and transmit to them a 
meager conventional heritage of book knowledge—when much, often 
the larger part, of education, was gotten outside of the schools, it was 
of little consequence that religion was omitted from their program. But 
today, when the public schools are taking on the dimensions of life it- 
self, and when they undertake to furnish to children an environment, 
simplified, purified, widened, balanced and rightly proportioned, the omis- 
sion of religion conveys a powerful condemnatory suggestion. The prin- 
ciple of the separation of Church and State must not be so construed as 
to render the State a fosterer of non-religion or of atheism. Yet that is 
precisely what we are in danger of doing in America today. We have 
too thoughtlessly accepted the idea that in view of the separation of 
Church and State, the public schools can have nothing to do with reli- 
gion. Within the next generation we must face this problem directly 
and courageously, and determine in the light of a careful thinking 
through of the whole situation just what the principle of the separation 
of Church and State involves and what it does not involve with respect 
to the education of children, which is so obviously the function of both. 

There is a general awakening to the danger of the present situation. 
Public school men, business men and legislators, as well as leaders of 
the Church, are concerned about it. In many parts of the country 
various experiments at a better correlation of religious education with 
public education are being made. In a few communities courses in. 
Biblical literature and history are offered by the public schools; in many 
more communities credit is given by the public schools for Bible study 
or religious education conducted by other agencies. The plan which 
has met with most favor is that whereby the public schools grant an 


sath fis 


hour or two of time from their weekly schedule, during which children 
may be taught in weekday schools of religion maintained by- the 
churches. This movement was first effective in connection with the 
public schools of Gary, Indiana, and is spreading rapidly. Such week- 
day schools of religion are now maintained in more than one thousand 
cities, towns and rural communities. The State of Minnesota recently 
passed a law definitely empowering local school boards to excuse child- 
ren from public school attendance for sot more than three hours a week 
in order that they might attend weekday religious instruction under 
the direction of the churches. 


Two considerations give ground for hope that, through experiment 
and wise statesmanship both in Church and State, a way may be found 
out of the present dangerous situation, without compromise of the prin- 
ciple of religious freedom or the principle of public responsibility for 
education in a democracy. One is the fact that the secularization of 
public education in this country has been incidental rather than pur- 
posed The other is the fact that it is the churches themselves, or mem- 
bers of the churches, who have been chiefly responsible for it. Even 
the religious heterogeneity of our population does not necessitate the 
present degree of exclusion of religion from public education. It is 
because we have held our different religious views and practices in so 
jealous, divisive, and partisan a fashion that the State has been obliged 
to withdraw religion from the curriculum and program of its schools. 
It is significant that while religion is often ignored in the constitutional 
and legislative provisions of the several states concerning public educa- 
tion, it is almost never forbidden nor declared against, although laws 
against sectarianism in the school abound. 


Can the churches of America become less sectarian and more religious 
in their attitude toward the education of their children? If they can, the 
greatest obstacle to a proper recognition of religion by the public schools 
will be removed. No less urgent than the call to Christian unity that 
comes from the mission fields or the realm of a disordered international 
life, is the call of the present educational situation in America. If our 
children and our children’s children are to give to religion its rightful 
place in education and in life, the churches must come together in 
mutual understanding and must cooperate, more largely and more 
responsibly than they have hitherto done, in a common educational 
policy. Only thus can they rise above the necessity of competition and 
make it possible for the public school to cooperate with them instead of 
ignoring them. 

The way out of the present situation lies with the churches. It is be- 
cause we have here not the State and the Church, nor even the State and 
a group of cooperating churches, but rather the State and half a hundred 
disagreeing churches, without a common educational purpose or policy, 
and most of them without a well-defined educational policy of their 
own, that it has been necessary for the State, in the fulfillment of its 
educational function, to pass the churches by. Let that situation cease, 


Wine Oe 


let the churches agree on an educational policy with respect both to 
their own teaching work and to the sort of recognition that they desire 
religion to be afforded by and in the public schools, let them do their 
share of the work of education in a way that merits recognition, and a 
fit measure of recognition is made possible and will almost certainly 
follow. 

One thing further should in justice be said. The most potent religious 
influence in the life of any school is to be found in the moral and re- 
ligious character of the teacher. The public schools of America are not 
irreligious because their teachers are almost everywhere men and 
women of strong moral character and of definite religious conviction. 
Without the direct teaching of religion, these teachers, by the character 
of their discipline and by the spirit which they maintain in the life of 
the schools, have been and are of profound influence in determining the 
character of American boys and girls. 


III. The Present Status of Church Schools in the United States 


The emphasis which has just been laid upon public education must 
not obscure the fact that the churches of America are free to maintain 
schools, whether of elementary, secondary or college grade, and whether 
for the purpose of education in general or for the specific purpose of 
education in religion. The truth is, moreover, that the churches have 
rendered effective service, throughout our history, in the establishment 
and maintenance of schools and colleges of every grade. 

In colonial days the churches generally, save in New England, where 
it was not necessary on account of the existence of public schools, main- 
tained elementary schools for the children of those who could not afford 
to pay for their tuition in private schools. As the public school system 
became established throughout the country, most of the churches sur- 
rendered the idea of maintaining elementary parochial schools. The 
outstanding exceptions to this rule are certain German-speaking branches 
of the Lutheran Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. The latter, 
particularly, dissents in principle from the established policy of public 
education; and, especially since the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore 
in 1884, has labored strenuously to provide strong parochial schools 
organized into diocesan system, for the education of Catholic children. 
There are now about 5,500 Catholic elementary schools, with an enroll- 
ment of 1,450,000 pupils. It will be noted that this constitutes more than 
90 per cent of the enrollment in all private and parochial schools of ele- 
mentary grade, a fact which shows how completely the Protestant 
churches have withdrawn from the field of elementary general education. 

In the field of secondary education the churches rendered their 
greatest service in the first half of the Nineteenth Century, by the foster- - 
ing, directly and indirectly, of the establishment of academies. In 1850 
there were in the United States over 6,000 such institutions, with an 
enrollment of 263,000 pupils. The majority of these schools were not 
directly connected with the churches; but a great many were so con- 


Bay ey 28 


nected, and practically all gave to religion a prominent place in their 
program and curriculum, and owed their existence and support in greater 
or less degree to the devotion of church members to those ideals of 
religion and education for which the churches stood. After 1850 the 
academies gave place rapidly to the growing system of free public high 
schools. Today there are less than 2,000 private high schools and 
academies in the United States, with a reported enrollment in 1922 of 
186,641 pupils. Nearly three-fourths of these schools, 1,433, with an en- 
rollment of 135,334, are connected with the churches. Nearly two- 
thirds of those connected with the churches are Roman Catholic. The 
number of secondary schools maintained by the Protestant churches 
has been steadily diminishing; but the Roman Catholic Church has been 
striving zealously to establish new secondary schools throughout the 
past forty years, with the result that 949 Catholic secondary schools 
were reported in 1922 as contrasted with 280 in 1895. A competent 
Catholic historian estimates that one-half of the Catholic children in 
America attend Catholic elementary schools, and that one-third of the 
Catholic children of secondary school age, who go to school at all, attend 
Catholic secondary schools. 


These facts indicate one of the major points of difference between Prot- 
estant and Catholic in America today. The Protestant churches desire 
their children to be educated in the public schools, and have therefore 
almost entirely ceased to make provision for general education in the 
elementary and secondary grades. The Roman Catholic Church, on the 
other hand, does not believe in the principle of public education as this 
has become established in the life of America. The State, according to 
its belief, has no primary right or function as an educator of children; 
that right and function belong to the parent, and ultimately to the 
Church. Education as a whole is a unitary process, it holds, which 
must include religion at every point; and the State is not competent 
to teach religion, The State may, therefore, levy and collect taxes for the 
support of schools and may set standards which it requires schools to 
maintain in certain subjects, but it is the business of the Church to 
carry on, through the schools of the Church, the education of childhood 
and youth. Roman Catholic authorities object to what they deem to 
be the injustice of the present situation, in that Catholics are taxed to 
support public schools to which they do not send their children, while 
the State refuses to return to them any share of the public funds for 
the support of their parochiol schools, for the maintenance of which 
they voluntarily tax themselves again. Definite demands for a share 
of the public funds were made by Catholics in various sections of the 
country in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, with the final result 
that almost all the states passed constitutional provisions forbidding 
the appropriation of any public funds for the support of sectarian 
schools. The only hope of securing public subsidies for parochial 
schools lies in gaining a sufficient majority to repeal these constitutional 
provisions. 


rl eee 


It is hard for Catholic and Protestant to understand one another at 
this point. To the Protestant, the Catholic principle of subsidies for 
parochial education would involve the breaking up of the American 
public school system, since the privilege granted to the Catholics must 
in equity be granted to other churches, and possibly, indeed, to other 
groups, such as political parties and trade unions. The Catholic 
Church cannot be the one exception. The Catholic, on the other hand, 
claims to be no enemy to the public schools, and wishes, indeed, to re- 
tain the term “public schools” as a name for schools conducted by the 
Church, but maintained in whole or in part by public funds. He can 
see no reason, moreover, why the public schools of the country, under 
these conditions, may not be separated into three groups,—Catholic, 
Protestant and Jewish. 

Yet mutual understanding is possible. Catholics are serving on many 
public school boards and are teaching in many public schools, to the 
satisfaction of citizens generally, of whatever creed. And in a number 
of the cities and towns where experiments in week-day religious educa- 
tion are being conducted, in cooperation with the public schools, the 
Catholic and Protestant churches have joined in the agreement which 
made the experiment possible. Catholic and Protestant alike desire 
the religious education of their children. They differ in that the Catho- 
lic holds that the whole of education, to be religiously motived, must 
be in the hands of the Church, whereas the Protestant believes that the 
Church can so cooperate with the public school as to make religion effec- 
tive in education, even though the whole process be not under the 
Church’s control. The Catholic has fairly well established the proof 
of his theory; it does succeed in training good Catholics. It remains 
for the Protestant to prove that his theory will work; for it has not 
really been tried, in thoroughgoing fashion, under the conditions of 
modern life. If the Protestant churches will try it and succeed, it is 
not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Catholic Church in this 
country may modify its policy of reliance upon parochial education and 
move in the direction of a larger dependence upon the public schools, 
with correlated religious education in church schools maintained for 
the specific purpose of teaching religion. 


If the Protestant churches are to succeed in this correlation of re- 
ligious education with public education, they must emancipate them- 
selves more completely than they have yet done from certain habits 
acquired in the Nineteenth Century. In this period catechetical instruc- 
tion declined in all the evangelical churches; and these churches 
depended generally, except in the more liturgical communions, upon 
successive waves of spiritual revival for the conversion and enlistment 
even of the children of their own members. Most churches had no- 
definite well-planned policy for the religious education of children; they 
failed to realize the larger educational responsibility which was being 
thrown upon them by the increasing secularization of the public schools. 


ai 


For the most part they surrendered the religious training of the children 
to various volunteer associations and agencies which sprang up, in 
more or less loose connection with the churches, to meet definite, 
specific needs. The most important and widespread of these agencies 
was the Sunday school. For more than a century this has been the 
institution upon which the churches have relied for the teaching of 
religion to the young. 

The Sunday schools of America have rendered great service to the 
Kingdom of Christ, but it has been in spite of, rather than because of 
certain characteristics which have rendered them less effective than it 
seems that they might have been. The Sunday schools of the Nine- 
teenth Century were ungraded, and manned by untrained volunteer 
teachers, who too often had few qualifications for the teaching office 
besides evangelistic fervor. These schools generally lacked organic 
connection with the churches with which they were associated. They 
afforded to their pupils but half an hour a week, often less, of class 
teaching. And they used in this teaching the International Uniform 
Sunday School Lessons. 

The initiation and wide adoption of the International Uniform Sunday 
School Lesson system in 1872 was a great step forward. These lessons 
were “uniform” in two senses: first, in that practically all the Sunday 
schools of all save two or three communions united in adopting this 
system of lessons; second, that there was but one lesson provided for 
all the pupils in the school, of whatever age and grade. In the first 
sense of the term, the uniformity of the Sunday school lessons has 
constituted one of the most widespread and significant instances, in 
the history of Protestanism, of cooperation between the denominations. 
In the second sense of the term, the uniformity of the lessons seems to 
have been a neccessary step in the development of the Sunday school, 
and did much to establish its place, in the latter part of the Nineteenth 
Century, as the foremost agency of Bible study. 

This uniformity, however, has increasingly become a limitation, 
standing in the way of the fuller development and larger usefulness of 
the Sunday school as an institution of religious education. The Uniform 
Lesson system is not pupil centered; it fails to make provision for the 
successive stages in the child’s moral and religious development, and 
affords no special nurture or guidance in those periods which are 
generally recognized as of critical importance. It contains within it- 
self no principle of progression, and does not permit of any real correla- 
tion or connection with the rest of the pupil’s education in public school 
and college. Since it must provide a series of lesson topics which can 
be used by everyone in the school, it is restricted to materials which 
lie in general at about the level of the comprehension of pupils from 
ten to fifteen years of age. Lessons so chosen are often unsuited, 
necessarily, to the understanding and religious needs of little children; 
and are inadequate to the intellectual, moral and religious needs of the 
more mature young people and adults. 


sey (oan 


The Uniform Lesson system, again, does not provide a proper basis 
for the study of the Bible. The attempt to choose passages from the 
Bible which can serve as a common body of lesson material for all of 
the school, from oldest to youngest, results necessarily in an over- 
emphasis of the narrative portions of the Bible, especially those shorter 
passages describing incidents which lend themselves readily to the 
drawing of distinct moral inferences, to the relative neglect of the 
Psalms, the writings of the great prophets, the Wisdom literature, and 
the Epistles. Yet the portions of the Bible thus slighted are, with the 
exception of the Gospels, the highest in religious value. The tendency 
of the Uniform Lessons, in view of these limitations, is to afford the 
pupils but a fragmentary knowledge of the history of the Hebrew 
people and the early Church, and to give them almost no conception 
of the richness of the literature contained in the Bible and of the 
sweep and perspective of God’s progressive revelation of Himself in 
this literature and in the life that it records. 

At the same time the Uniform Lesson system is limited to material 
chosen from the Bible; and the schools using these lessons have tended 
to conceive their function in terms of instruction merely. The result 
of the first of these limitations is that pupils studying these lessons gain 
no understanding of such vitally important matters as the history of 
the Christian Church; the place of Christianity and Christian leaders 
in mediaeval and modern history; the comparison of Christianity with 
other religions; the development and present opportunity of Christian 
missions; the Christian approach to the social problems and movements 
of the world today; even the everyday problems of personal morality 
and social justice. It is tragic that the public schools should omit 
these matters; and then that the-schools upon which the churches have 
relied to teach religion should neglect them as well, limiting them- 
selves simply to the interpretation of scattered Biblical narratives. 
How, in this situation, can children learn to understand and appreciate 
Christianity as a living religion? The argument is not that less time 
and study should be given to the Bible; we need more and better teach- 
ing of the Bible than this system makes possible. But the curriculum 
of religious education should be far richer than this, and should be 
centered more definitely about the developing problems, choices and 
experiences of children as they live and move in the world of today. So 
only can the young be fitted to understand and to do God’s will in 
these days of world-wide missionary effort, of vast and complex social 
problems, and of a possible social regeneration that may bring the world 
measurably nearer to the Kingdom of God. 


The result of the Sunday schools’ policy of instruction merely, to the 
neglect of the essential place of activity in all sound educational method, 
as well as in all true religious development, has been that there has 
sprung up, within and about the churches, a multitude of other organi- 
zations for the training of children and young people in wholesome 
social living and in the attitudes, habits and group activities associated 


2g Kee 


with various forms of Christian service. Boy’s clubs and girls’ clubs of 
various sorts, societies of Christian Endeavor and other young people’s 
societies, temperance societies, Boys’ Brigades, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 
Campfire Girls, Knights of King Arthur, King’s Daughters, mission- 
study groups and missionary societies of various ages—the list might be 
multiplied almost indefinitely. In many churches these organizations 
operate more or less independently, without relation to the Sunday 
school, and with policies and programs determined by their district, 
state and national affiliations rather than by their place within the 
local church’s educational system. There is duplication, overlapping 
and competition, on the one hand, and on the other, failure to provide 
fully for all ages and sexes. Worst of all, there is the educational in- 
efficiency involved in a situation which leaves instruction and activity 
sundered—the Sunday school with a program of instruction unapplied 
in the group life of its pupils, and the other organizations with pro- 
grams of activity unrelated to the instruction which their members are 
receiving week after week in the Sunday school. 


With the opening of the present Century the Protestant churches 
began to awake to the danger involved in the omission of religion by 
otherwise competent public schools, and the throwing of the burden of 
religious education upon educationally incompetent Sunday schools. 
In 1903 the Religious Education Association was organized, with the 
declared purpose “to inspire the educational forces of our country with 
the religious ideal, to inspire the religious forces of our country with 
the educational ideal, and to keep before the public mind the ideal of 
religious education and the sense of its need and value.” In 1908, 
after years of criticism and agitation, the International Sunday School 
Association authorized the Lesson Committee to construct and issue a 
graded series of Sunday school lessons, with distinct material for each 
year of the pupil’s school life. In 1910 the Sunday School Council of 
Evangelical Denominations was organized, marking the more definite 
assumption by the several denominations of responsibility for the educa- 
tional work of their Sunday schools and for the training of teachers. 
In 1920 a reorganization of the old International Sunday School 
Association was begun whereby it was merged with the newer Sunday 
School Council. The body thus created, bearing the name of the Inter- 
national Council of Religious Education, is the recognized agency of 
the Protestant churches for cooperative effort in the field of the religious 
education of children and youth. In 1920, moreover, the International 
Sunday School Lesson Committee decided to move as rapidly as 
possible toward the issuance of graded lessons only. Beginning with 
1924 it is putting this policy into effect by substituting for the Uniform 
Lessons, for children under twelve years of age, graded lessons of two 
types—graded by years and graded by three-year age-groups. 

These dates and items represent but a few outstanding factors in a 
movement greater far than any single organization or group of organi- 
zations. The fact is that the Protestant churches of America have 


Sey, bias 


begun to experience a genuine educational revival. Thousand of Sun- 
day schools in all parts of the country have been graded, have broadened 
their vision and enriched their curriculum. In many communities week- 
day schools of religion have been established, either by single churches 
or by the cooperative effort of the Protestant churches. These week- 
day schools meet sometimes once, sometimes five times a week and 
make possible a larger amount of religious training for our children. 
The Daily Vacation Bible Schools held in many churches during the 
summer season serve this same purpose. Problems of curriculum, 
methods and organization are being studied in an experimental and 
scientific way. New buildings are being erected for their schools by 
the more progressive churches, designed with a view to their educa- 
tional utility and furnished with adequate material equipment. Classes 
for the training of teachers are maintained by most churches; and com- 
munity training schools are multiplying. Thousands of teachers and 
prospective teachers of religion gather for one to six weeks of training 
in summer schools conducted by the denominations and by other 
organizations. Many of the larger churches are employing paid teachers 
of religion and directors of religious education. Courses in religious 
education have been organized and professorships of religious educa- 
tion established in colleges and theological seminaries, so that young 
men who are now entering the Christian ministry are being trained 
not simply to preach and to care for a parish, but to direct the educa- 
tional work of a church. 

All of this means that a new type of church school is being developed 
—a church school for the teaching of religion, maintained by the local 
church or a group of neighboring churches, for children whose education 
in other respects is provided for in the public schools. These newer 
church schools are graded in the same way as the public schools; they 
provide for the religious education of children through activity as well 
as through instruction; and their schedule includes week-day as well as 
Sunday hours. 


There are over 180,000 Sunday schools in the United States, with an 
enrollment of 20,000,000 pupils. About one-half of these schools use 
graded lessons in whole or in part; and one-half still use nothing other 
than the Uniform Lesson system. A rapidly growing number of schools 
of the former group are being transformed by incorporation into the 
wider and richer educational program to which the term “the church 
school” is applied. 

The present movement for the organization of church schools is 
frankly experimental. It is meeting much success; but no one yet 
knows just what form of organization, or what scheme of curriculum, 
is best. Many are being tried. ; 

It seems clear, however, that the curriculum of the church school 
should be experiential in character, and its program of organization 
inclusive. This principle may best be expounded, doubtless, in terms 
of Professor Dewey’s theory of the school, referred to in a former sec- 


eos ee 


tion of this report. He holds, we remember, that the school should 
be, not so much a place in which to read about experiences, as a place 
where children may have experiences. It should be a fellowship of 
young folk, living and working together, under the leadership of a 
teacher; a fellowship within which children may have experiences of 
discovery, perplexity, problem-solving, initiative, cooperation, responsi- 
bility, self-control, obedience to truth, and the like, and may develop 
desirable qualities of mind and heart and will by being afforded oppor- 
tunity and stimulus to exercise these qualities. 


Whatever we may think with respect to the possibility of the public 
schools’ realization of such a theory of their function, this theory is 
clearly suggestive and helpful with respect to the church school. The 
church school should be, not so much a place where children may learn 
something or other about religion, as a place where they may experi- 
ence religion. It should be a fellowship of children associated in 
Christian living, under the leadership of the Church, and consequently 
growing in Christian experiences and acquiring Christian habits, atti- 
tudes, motives, ideals and beliefs. 

The curriculum of the church school should therefore be pupil-cen- 
tered, rather than material-centered, as Sunday school lessons have too 
often been. Instead of starting with a given body of material, and 
asking the question at what ages we may most profitably teach the 
different sections of this material, a truer method of curriculum-making 
starts with the children. It asks what are the opportunities, problems 
and experiences that are normal at each stage of developing childhood; 
and it undertakes so to order the situations into which it brings children 
and the material which it makes accessible to them, as to help them 
meet these opportunities, solve these problems and have these ex- 
periences., 

The church school, so conceived, is inclusive. It cannot be confined 
merely to the Sunday hour, or to the type of effort which the Sunday 
school has ordinarily represented. Its curriculum embodies more 
than instruction; it includes the experience of worship, the experiences 
of fellowship, of giving, of cooperation, of service—indeed, the whole 
range of experiences that enter normally into the development of Chris- 
tian life and character. And so the church school will include, as an 
organic part of its program and organization, all lesser clubs, societies 
and groups which the church maintains for the Christian education of 
its children and young people. The church school is another name 
for the church itself, undertaking, with a consciously educative purpose, 
to make its own life and experience available to oncoming generations. 

In the face of this emphasis upon church schools, it must not be for- 
gotten that the moral and religious education of children depends very 
largely upon the life of the family of which they are members. The 
whole work of education can never be accomplished by schools, whether 
public schools or church schools, however wisely these may be planned 
and administered. The family in its home life has the child first, and 


94 Vee 


' the impressions which he then receives serve as background, foundation 
and apperceptive basis for all subsequent education; it has the child, 
moreover, in his most impressionable years, and educates him by 
methods of constant contact and association, with influences all the 
more vital because they are for the most part indirect and unnoticed. 
Horace Bushnell held that the first three years of a child’s life are more 
important as a general fact, in their bearing upon education and charac- 
ter, than all the years of discipline that may come afterward. 


The influence of family life are of especial importance in their bearing 
upon the growing character of the child. Here is a little group of old 
and young, mature and immature, living together in mutual affection, 
placing personal values first, constrained by the manifold contacts of 
their common life each to have regard for the things of the other, always 
giving and receiving service, with the opportunities for helpfulness, un- 
selfishness, and even self-sacrifice, so constant as to make these a 
matter of course,—what finer soil for the virtues, what better training 
ground for character, could there be? We may well doubt whether this 
moral function of the family could ever be fulfilled by any other institu- 
tion. Schools may take over the larger part of the education of children; 
and the state may exercise supervision and control in many matters 
that, under simpler conditions of life, were left to the parent. The life 
of the school and the service of the state, moreover, can do much to 
bring out the sturdier virtues and to train the character of the young. 
But these must deal with children in large groups and in relatively cold 
and impersonal ways. They can never beget and train the inner 
emotional springs of the moral life as the family does in its atmosphere 
of personal affection, love, and loyalty. Were there no family, the 
state would doubtless be obliged to invent some such small social group- 
ings as might be expected, in some measure, to fulfill its function in this 
respect. Public institutions do something of the sort when they adopt 
the policy of house or cottage dormitories; colleges, when they permit 
the organization of fraternities. But no substitute that has yet been 
tried or imagined can take the place, morally, of a real home, or com- 
pensate for the loss of father and mother and the lack of genuine family 
life. 


There is an essential relation, moreover, between Christianity and the 
institution of the family. The Christian religion universalizes the re- 
lations of family life. Jesus’ teachings concerning God as well as con- 
cerning human duty, are based upon these relations. God, he tells us, 
is our Father; and we are all brethren. Our understanding of these 
teachings depends upon the quality of our own family life. It is the 
privilege and responsibility of the parent to interpret God to his children 
in terms of his own character, and so to direct the spirit of his family 
that it may fitly serve as the type for all good social living. A Chris- 
tian family is one which, established in the Christian convictions of the 
parents, seeks so to express these convictions in its spirit and practice 
that its children may grow up to be children of God. 


eat | ae 


Changing conditions are rendering family life more difficult. The 
social and economic changes consequent upon the industrial revolution, 
the transfer of industry from homes to factories and offices, the massing 
of the population in cities, the increased mobility due to the develop- 
ment of systems of transportation and communication, the specialization 
of all sorts of work and the consequent commercialization of life, to- 
gether with the changing status of woman, involve changes in the 
character of the home, and confront the family with new and perplexing 
problems. 

The family is under fire today. The traditional attack of socialism 
upon the family has been based upon the idea that it is an outgrowth 
of the principle of private property. The present attack upon family 
life has assumed a more subtle and insidious form, and is more wide- 
spread than conscious adherence to any type of socialism. This attack 
is associated with the rising current of feminism and the development 
of the so-called new psychology; and it is based upon a changed attitude 
toward sex which insists upon regarding the field of sex relations as 
a range for the assertion of individual freedom and the satisfaction of 
individual desire rather than the field of the most sacred of human 
affections and most creative of human responsibilities. 

The Christian Church is vitally interested in maintaining the integrity 
of the family as a social institution in adjustment to and in control of 
the new conditions of modern life. It may best do this if it keeps clear 
its convictions respecting the necessity of the family as an agency of 
moral and religious education. The family began because there were 
children to be cared for and taught. It must continue for the same 
reason. The Christian Church, following its Master, should place the 
child in the midst. It is for the sake of the child that the family ex- 
ists. It is not merely to enjoy one another that a man and woman 
are joined in marriage, but that they may undertake the creative res- 
ponsibility of parenthood. The physical begetting of the child’s body 
is but the beginning of the education of the child’s soul. The Church 
must consistently maintain the point of view of Christian parenthood 
as the only sound basis for a discussion of sex relations, and it must 
find in the maintenance and enrichment of Christian family life one of 
its most fundamental problems and opportunities. 


IV. The Church and Higher Education 


Most of the colleges of America have been founded by the churches or 
by Christian people who have had a distinct religious purpose. A 
pamphlet entitled ““New England’s First Fruits,” published in London 
in 1643, states the motive which led the Puritans immediately to the 
establishment of schools and a college: “After God had carried us safe 
to New England and we had builded our houses, provided the neces- 
saries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, 
and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for 
and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, 


Sing ¢: ee 


dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present 
ministers shall lie in the dust.” The motives for higher education have 
widened, yet the churches have continued, throughout the nearly three 
centuries that have since elapsed, to render notable service by the 
establishment of colleges wherever the need was manifest. The con- 
tribution of the churches to higher education has been more effective 
and permanent than their service to elementary and secondary educa- 
tion. It is a contribution, moreover, that has often been sacrificial, 
for churches have given out of their poverty that colleges might be 
maintained in frontier communities; and it has usually been self-for- 
getting, for the churches have sought to minister, through these institu- 
tions, not merely to their own interests, but to the general welfare. 

Each of the nine colleges established in the colonial period avowed a 
distinct religious purpose; and but one (that at Philadelphia which in 
time became the University of Pennsylvania) was undenominational. 
Of the 246 colleges founded by the close of the year 1860, only 17 were 
state institutions. Since 1860 the number of state colleges and univer- 
sities maintained by public funds has greatly increased, and the relative 
influence of these institutions has grown. There are now 670 colleges 
and universities in the United States. These may be divided into three 
distinct groups: (a) colleges and universities in direct relation with 
religious bodies, and in varying measure under their control, 506; (b) 
colleges and universities privately endowed and controlled, many of 
which have a religious origin and history, and still maintain sym- 
pathetic relationship with the churches, 62; (c) state colleges and uni- 
versities maintained by public funds, 102, 

A degree of secularization has marked the development of all three of 
these types of institution throughout the last half century. This is due 
to the causes which have brought about the secularization of education 
in general—notably, to the heterogeneous character of the population 
and to the presence in these institutions of students drawn from groups 
which differ widely in religious beliefs and practices. The development 
of the sciences and arts, moreover, and the progress of invention and 
discovery have overcrowded the curriculum of the colleges and univer- 
sities with new subjects, and have induced specialization in education 
as in other fields. The faculties, even of the colleges of liberal arts, 
have been organized into distinct departments, each with a more or 
less narrow, sharply-defined special field. There has been little time 
or inclination for courses dealing with the meaning of life as a whole; 
and the elective system, whereby students choose the courses which 
engage their interest, has permitted all varieties of combination. On 
the whole, doubtless, there is less of definite, direct, conscious religious 
influence and content in the curriculum and life of American colleges 
today than there was two generations ago. 

Certain problems with respect to the place of religion in the curricu- 
lum and corporate life of the institution are common to all three types 
of college and university. 


= i Lo eer 


One of these problems is that of the moral life of the students. To 
what degree shall the moral welfare of the students body be guarded by 
rules and restrictions, or shall all oversight be rejected as paternalistic? 
Practically all of the colleges and universities of America make definite 
provision for the moral guidance and welfare of their students, although 
institutions differ in the degree to which this oversight is embodied in 
rules and restrictions devised by the faculty. Self-government among 
the students is developed to an encouraging degree. In some institu- 
tions the responsibility of the students for the government of their 
own life finds expression in definite organizations recognized by the 
faculty as cooperating bodies; in other institutions there is less of for- 
mal organization, but a strongly developed sense of honour and an 
effective public opinion within the student body. 

Another problem is that of the place of religious worship in the 
corporate life of the institution. Shall there be required attendance at 
daily chapel or at Sunday services, or shall this be left to the free choice 
of the individual student? Shall there be a college church, or shall 
students be expected to affiliate with the churches of their choice in the 
community in which the college is placed? While institutions differ 
widely in their provision for chapel and church services, some such 
provision finds a place in the life of practically all of the colleges and 
universities of the United States. In some, attendance at both daily 
and Sunday services is voluntary; in many institutions, on the other 
hand, attendance at the daily chapel service is required of undergradu- 
ates. There is a distinct tendency toward the maintenance of a Sun- 
day service especially for students in the college chapel, as contrasted 
with the reliance simply upon the services of worship maintained by 
the local churches. Yet the danger is recognized of thus loosening the 
bonds that unite the student to his church, and in one form or another 
the affiliation of students with the local churches of the college com- 
munity is encouraged, and many denominations are making special 
provision through college pastors to minister more effectively to the 
moral and religious life of their student members. 

Religion is better provided for in the curriculum of the college and 
university, in general, than in the curricula of the elementary and 
secondary schools. Traditionally, religion, or subjects closely associ- 
ated with it, always had a place in the college curriculum. Courses in 
Evidences of Christianity, Natural Theology, and the like, were general. 
In the comparative secularization of the colleges which was character- 
istic of the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, these courses for the 
most part disappeared. More recently there has been a movement 
among the colleges toward the organization of distinct departments 
of Biblical Literature, Religion, or Religious Education. Many institu- 
tions, moreover, are seeking to teach religion, not simply as one subject 
among others, but as a principle which undergirds and contributes to 
the integration of the entire curriculum. An interesting development 
in some colleges is the requirement that students take, in their freshman 


Man) yoat 


or sophomore year, what may be termed an orientation course, related 
to the curriculum as a whole in somewhat the same way that the course 
in theological propaedeutic was formerly related to the curriculum 
of a theological seminary. This course, which in some institutions 
bears the title of Contemporary Civilization, is designed to help the 
student find his bearings and gain some appreciation of the relations 
of the various subjects to one another and to human life as a whole. 
It necessarily raises questions with respect to the meanings and values 
of life and brings the student face to face with problems of morality 
and religion. 

Various religious activities, moreover, have a large place in the life 
of American colleges and universites as an extra-curriculum, voluntary 
interest of students. The vast majority of the students in these institu- 
tions come from Christian homes, and claim membership in, or affilli- 
ation with, the churches. Colleges have reported as high as 96 per 
cent. of their students as claiming church affiliation; and it is not 
unusual even for a state university to report 70 or 80 per cent. of its 
students as church adherents. Even in several states where Catholic 
immigration has reduced the proportion of Protestants to as low as 
37 per cent. of the total population, no less than 75 per cent. of the 
college and university students come from this part of the population. 
It is natural, therefore, that these students should express their religious 
convictions in voluntary ways, and that, in one form or another, religion 
should constitute one of their extra-curriculum interests. The Y. M. C. 
A., the Y. W. C. A., the Student Violunteer Movement, and other nation- 
al organizations, have rendered effective service as instruments of this 
voluntary religious interest; and there are many local organizations 
serving like ends, in the various colleges and universities. In the 
first decade of the Nineteenth Century, the work of the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began in an extra-curriculum 
prayer-meeting of students at Williams College; and in the Twentieth 
Century we find college students maintaining a Yale-in-China, an 
Oberlin-in-China and a hundred like enterprises. The work of home 
missions in America has depended largely upon the interest of such 
students as those who made up the Illinois Band and the Iowa Band. 
Today we find students maintaining a Hope Mission for down-and- 
outers in a great city, teaching English to classes of immigrants, and 
serving as scoutmasters and church school teachers. The assumption 
by college students of responsibility for their own religious and philan- 
thropic organizations, and the directing of their religious impulses 
into objective channels of service, are among the brightest features 
of student life in this country. 

The personal character and religious faith of the members of the 
faculty go farther, perhaps, than any other single factor to determine 
the moral and religious influence of a college or university. This is 
not so much because students emulate their preceptors as because the 
attitudes and beliefs of a teacher are reflected in incidental references 


Pee. 


and allusions, and in the total perspective of his teaching. He becomes 
to the student an authority, whether he will or not, at every point 
where his subject touches upon religion. He is set to teach the truth; 
and the truth is not simply the bare facts in a special field, but the total 
perspective in which these facts are set. It is natural, therefore, that 
qualifications of character and religious influence should be considered, 
as well as qualifications of scholarship and teaching ability, in the 
choice of members of faculties. This is true of American colleges and 
universities rather generally. It is possible, of course, to administer 
this principle with undue narrowness and sectarianism; but this is not 
characteristic of most institutions. 

Each of the three types of institutions has distinct problems of its 
own, with respect to the place of religion in its curriculum and corporate 
life. 

The college or university controlled by a church is fortunate, usually, 
in the Christian purpose which underlies its work, and in the Christian 
environment with which it surrounds its students. It must be careful 
to maintain the freedom of its faculty to teach the truth, unbiased by 
sectarian considerations; and it must undertake not simply to mold its 
students to the traditions of a group, but to afford to them the eman- 
cipating influences of a larger vision and fellowship. 


The college or university which is privately endowed and controlled 
by a self-perpetuating corporation is fortunate in its freedom. Many 
such colleges maintain relations of sympathy and cooperation, not only 
with the churches with which they have close historical association, 
but with the churches generally. There is a significant example of a 
college (Carleton, in Minnesota) founded by Congregationalists but 
independently controlled, as all Congregational colleges are, which has 
not only maintained the friendship and commanded the continued sup- 
port of the Congregational churches, but has recently been adopted, 
without change of charter or loss of Congregational interest by the 
general bodies of the Baptist and Episcopal churches of the state in 
which it is located. It is possible, on the other hand, for the indepen- 
dent college to lose touch with religious forces, and. even to lose its 
own soul of devotion to the higher values of life. It is possible, again, 
for such an institution to fail to maintain contact with the developing 
life of democracy, and to become aristocratic. It is possible, too, that 
the self-perpetuating corporation of the independent college may govern 
the institution in the interest of a class, or may unduly limit the freedom 
of its professors to teach the truth as they understand it, without there 
being recourse of appeal to a larger body responsible for the policies 
of the institution. 

The college or university maintained by the state and supported by 
taxation has an organic connection with the public school system, and 
must meet the needs of a democratic society. There is a multiplicity 
of demands upon the resources of these institutions, with a tendency 
toward over-emphasis upon utilitarian values; and they are over- 


Biigep les 


crowded with students. They share the limitation of the public schools 
with respect to the teaching of religion. The churches are succeeding, 
however, in cooperating more effectively with the higher public institu- 
tions in the interest of the religious welfare of their students than 
with the elementary and secondary public.schools. Promising experi- 
ments are those whereby religious Foundations are being established, 
and cooperating Schools of Religion maintained by the churches, in 
connection with some of the larger state universities. It is possible 
that the problem of the cooperation of Church and State in the interest 
of education, without abridging the freedom of either or infringing upon 
their separation, may first be worked out upon the level of the college 
rather than upon that of the elementary or secondary schools. 


V. The Church Training Its Ministers 


We have seen that dread of an illiterate ministry was one of the 
motives that led the citizens of Massachusetts Bay to establish Harvard 
College. Throughout the Eighteenth Century, young men preparing 
for the ministry were trained in the colleges, most of which, like 
Harvard, had been founded with this purpose in view, or by private 
study under the direction of an eminent preacher like the Rev. Joseph 
Bellamy of Bethlehem, Connecticut, who is said to have trained more 
than one hundred candidates for ordination. In the early Nineteenth 
Century theological seminaries began to be organized as distinct pro- 
fessional schools. There are now 131 Protestant theological seminaries 
in the United States, with an aggregate enrollment of about 10,000 
students. In June, 1922, 880 men graduated from these institutions 
with the B. D. degree, and 675 with diplomas or certificates. At the 
same time 600 men were graduated from the Roman Catholic semi- 
naries into the priesthood of that Church. 

The central importance of the theological seminary in the Church’s 
educational work is so obvious as to need no comment. The character 
of a church depends, more than on any other one factor, upon the 
character of the men who, as leaders of worship, preachers, pastors, 
parish administrators, directors of religious education, and interpreters 
of the meaning and mission of Christianity, constitute its spiritual 
leaders. And the quality of their leadership depends largely upon the 
breadth, thoroughness and spirit of their training. The truth is, how- 
ever, that no part of the educational work of the churches of America 
is more difficult to describe than this. It is in theological education, 
naturally, that the lines of denominational division are most sharply 
drawn. Each denomination, wishing to perpetuate the truth as it sees 
it, and to fit men for future service within its own organization, tends. 
in training these men to emphasize strongly the distinctive beliefs and 
practices which separate it from other denominations. In no phase of 
American education, therefore, is there more lack of agreement than 
here. There is wide variation both of theory and of practice with re- 
spect to the aims, methods and content of the theological curriculum. 


pay a 


Of the 131 Protestant seminaries, 120 are denominational and 11 are 
in no way controlled by a denomination. The seminaries of the latter 
group enroll one-fifth of the aggregate student enrollment of all the 
seminaries. 

Most of the better theological seminaries are professional schools of 
graduate standing—that is, they require college graduation as a pre- 
requisite for admission. This requirement is not administered in rigid 
fashion, however, and mature students may be admitted to most institu- 
tions on examination or by special vote of the faculty, even though 
they lack a college degree. Other seminaries require but two years of 
college work as a prerequisite for entrance; some only a high school 
education; and some adhere to no definite scholastic standards for ad- 
mission. In general, the movement is toward recognition of the de- 
sirability of college graduation as a qualification for entrance upon 
theological study. In practically all seminaries three years of study 
are required for the B. D. degree or the theological diploma. 


With the exception of the problems centering about a larger measure 
of unity and cooperation, the outstanding problems of the theological 
seminaries are those that concern the curriculum. To the traditional 
subjects of the Biblical languages and literature, theology, church his- 
tory, homiletics and liturgics, there have been added in recent years a 
wealth of new subjects dealing with the application of Christian prin- 
ciples to the life of today, and with various phases of the minister’s 
practical responsibility and service. Such subjects are pressing into 
the curriculum as the psychology of religion, the principles of religious 
education, personal and public evangelism, home and foreign missions, 
Christian ethics, sociology, labor problems and the principles of Chris- 
tian philanthropy. As a result, the curriculum of the more progressive 
seminaries is overcrowded, while there is considerable discontent with 
the position of those which still cling to the older subjects only. As 
yet, no fully satisfactory solution has been found for the problem thus 
created. In some institutions students are required to attend so many 
recitations per week that it is difficult for them to secure enough time 
to read and study in thorough, unhurried fashion; in others, under an 
elective system, the choice between competing courses is left so largely 
to the student that many neglect certain subjects, and fail to secure the 
fundamental, well-rounded training which the seminary should afford. 
A few seminaries have lengthened the course to four years, either by 
actual requirement, or as a matter of practice, in that many of the 
stronger students choose to remain for an additional year of post- 
graduate study. 

The Institute of Social and Religious Research recently undertook a 
survey of the theological seminaries of the United States and Canada, 
the results of which were published in 1924 under the title “Theological 
Education in America.” The most urgent need revealed by the facts 
thus brought together is the need for a thorough rethinking of the whole 
problem of theological education with a view to a reorganization of 


a>) (oe 


the curricula of the seminaries. It seems probable that such a reor- 
ganization should be along lines determined by the various functions 
of ministerial service; and that the selection of materials for the curricu- 
lum should be with a view to their use and value in the fulfillment 
of these functions. There is doubtless a danger, in such functional 
reorganization, of conceiving the seminaries as mere training schools 
for certain activities—nothing but “priest-factories,” as one university 
professor irreverently put it—to the neglect of their function as schools 
which should educate men capable of thinking for themselves and of 
exercising intellectual leadership as well as moral and spiritual leader- 
ship in the communities which they serve. But with due care and 
proper insight this danger can be avoided. In the elementary and sec- 
ondary schools, in the colleges and other professional schools, the 
growing wealth of knowledge and complexity of life have forced 
teachers to a reconsideration, in functional terms, of the educational 
value of the materials available for their curricula. Such reconsidera- 
tion must take place whenever there are significant additions to the 
world’s store of knowledge and experience. In the fields which con- 
stitute the especial interest of the Church there has been remarkable 
growth of knowledge and experience throughout the past few genera- 
tions. To deny the present need of a reconsideration and possible 
reorganization of the theological curriculum would be to deny the 
witness of the Spirit in the life of today. 


At one point, especially, the theological seminaries have failed to 
avail themselves of principles of educational method which the ex- 
perience of other schools has shown to be of great value. They fail 
generally to make adequate provisions for their students to learn by 
doing. It is true that most seminary students support themselves, in 
whole or in part, at least after the first year of their theological course, by 
serving as pastors of smaller churches in the vicinity of the seminary, 
teaching in church schools, or serving as Scout masters, leaders of 
boys’ clubs or residents in social settlements. Yet most seminaries fail 
to make an educational use of the activities in which students are 
thus engaged. These activities not only afford to students opportuni- 
ties to use the truths which they learn from books, and to apply the 
principles discussed in the class room, but place them in situations 
within which problems arise which may quicken and motivate the 
whole of their theolbgical education. It may indeed be possible to 
reorganize the curriculum, not only with a view to the functions which 
the young minister is in' future to exercise, but with a view to the active 
functions which he is fulfilling while a student. Such a reorganization 
would give place in theological education to methods analogous to those 
of apprenticeship systems in industrial education, or the clinic and the 
hospital internship in medical education. A few seminaries, notably 
Union Theological Seminary in New York and the Divinity School of 
the University of Chicago, have begun to organize the field work of 
their students along these lines. There is room here for wise and 


uh Sam 


courageous experimentation. It would seem at least to be feasible 
in all seminaries to organize seminars of practice wherein students 
might discuss the problems arising in their field work under the leader- 
ship of their major professors. 

It is perhaps not desirable that all theological seminaries should be 
of the same type. There are obvious advantages in the situation of the 
theological seminary in a large city, where its students can get a first- 
hand acquaintance with the problems of urban churches; but there are 
like advantages in the sequestered situation of other seminaries whose 
students can without distraction devote themselves to study, and can 
learn by serving as student pastors of rural parishes. There is much 
to be said in favor of the large seminary, which undertakes to train 
not only preachers and pastors, but missionaries for home and foreign 
fields, directors of religious education, social service workers, Y. M. 
C. A. officers, and teachers of religion in secondary schools, colleges 
and universities; but not all seminaries can be of this type, and there 
is mtich to be said also in favor of the smaller institution which centers 
its energies upon the training of preachers and pastors. 

Without prejudice to their primary function as training schools for 
ministers, the theological seminaries of the United States have rendered 
great service to education through the multitude of their graduates 
who have taught in the schools and colleges. It was long a tradition 
that the presidents of American colleges should be clergymen; and it 
is yet true that many college presidents and professors, and head mas- 
ters and teachers in secondary schools, have had a theological training. 
In one hundred years Yale Divinity School gave to America 112 college 
and university presidents and more than 500 members of college and 
university faculties, besides more than 3,000 ministers, 

The seminaries occupy a position of strategic importance in the 
movement toward Christian unity and the cooperation of the churches. 
It depends upon them, humanly speaking, whether the ministers of 
the next generation will be jealous ecclesiastical partisans or men will- 
ing to enter into cooperative relations with brethren whose denomina- 
tional heritage differs from their own. In spite of the present confusion 
of theological education, there are clear signs that the seminaries are 
moving in the direction of larger Christian fellowship rather than 
toward the further division and disintegration of Christian forces. 
- Among these signs are: 

the fact that a growing number of schools serve more than one 
denomination. The charter of Union Theological Seminary provides 
that “equal privileges of admission and instruction, with all the ad- 
vantages of the institution, should be allowed to students of every 
denomination of Christians.” Its student body in 1923-4 included 
members of 36 different denominations. A like universality of service 
characterizes most of the group of seminaries which are not controlled 
by a denomination; and even in certain denominational seminaries 
there is a small but growing number of students from other communions: 


22 9Ge. 


the fact, further, that many members of the theological faculties are 
men whose scholarship is recognized generally, rather than within 
the bounds merely of their own denomination. This has always been 
true of certain teachers of the Biblical languages and literature and of 
church history. It is true now as well, of many of the men who are 
developing the newer subjects‘of the seminary curriculum. Many 
professors of missions, of religious education, and of social service are 
recognized as authorities in their fields quite without regard to their 
particular denominational afhliation: ji 

Another fact, associated with this, is the migration of students. The 
European custom whereby a student attends not one, but several univer- 
sities, seeking the courses and the teachers of his choice, has never 
become rooted in American college and university life. The nearest 
approach to this custom is to be found in the theological seminaries 
today. Each year a certain number of theological students migrate 
from seminary to seminary in quest of work in special fields or with 
particular men. The proposal has been made that the seminaries might 
make better use of their resources by undertaking a degree of' specializa- 
tion. In that case not every seminary would attempt to maintain a 
strong mission department for example, or a department for the tech- 
nical training of directors of religious education; and students would 
be encouraged to go for this work to those seminaries which are 
specializing in these fields: 

the final fact looking in the direction of a larger Christian fellowship 
is the movement toward the affiliation of the seminaries with the uni- 
versities. Some of the stronger seminaries are organic parts of a 
university, constituting its professional school of training for the Chris- 
tian ministry on a parity with its professional schools of law and 
medicine. Other strong seminaries situated in the neighborhood of 
universities have entered into more or less close affiliation with them, 
and in some cases an exchange of credits is provided for. The number 
of courses thus thrown open to the seminary students is greatly in- 
creased, and a stimulating contact with the life of the larger institution 
is secured; while the seminary, in its turn, is able to contribute a valu- 
able element to the university’s program. 

That research is one of the functions of a seminary is generally 
acknowledged. It is promoted not only by the work of individual 
professors, but by the establishment in some of the larger seminaries 
of graduate departments. The graduate schools of some of the uni- 
versities, moreover, have departments of Religion, Religious Education, 
and Biblical Literature, and confer the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. for 
meritorious work in these fields., which are closely related to the work 
of the seminary. 


VI. The Church and Public Opinion 


The Church’s educational function is not limited to the young; it 
extends to the more mature. And it is concerned not only with in- 
dividuals, but with the ideas, motives, and behavior of social groups. 


ro 


Public opinion is more than a name for the collective opinions, in- 
dependently formed, of individuals. The fact is that no individual is 
quite independent. The relation of the individual to the group is 
organic. The group is made up of individuals; but the individual’s 
habits, beliefs and ideals are determined, in part, by the life of the 
groups of which he is a member. St. Paul recognized this fact; modern 
social psychology is discovering the laws of human nature which 
establish the truth of his conviction that we are members one of 
another. , 


In any social order, therefore, the Church will seek to educate men, 
not merely through direct teaching, but through the indirect influence 
of all those forces of the physical and social environment which have 
bearing upon the development of intelligence and character. If it were 
to rely upon direct teaching only, the Church would fail utterly to 
reach those who do not attend its worship or care for its ministries; 
and it would find itself blocked and hindered continually, in the case 
even of those who come directly under its influence, by the inertia and 
negative suggestions of pagan mores and non-Christian public opinion. 

In a social order which possesses a political structure like that of the 
United States, it is especially important that the Church should conceive 
its educational function in the widest terms; and that it should make 
use of all legitimate methods to create and sustain an enlightened, 
effective and true public opinion upon all matters that lie within the 
range of its interest. The democratic organization of the American 
government is designed to make public opinion effective; and “in 
proportion,” as Washington put it in the memorable words already 
quoted, “as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, 
it is essential that public opinion be enlightened.” Moreover, the com- 
plete separation of Church and State in this country deprives the 
Church of all measures of coercion, renders it dependent upon its power 
to convince men who are quite free to dissent from its views or refuse 
its ministries, and confronts it with actual multitudes of folk who are 
indifferent to its appeal. 


The agencies which determine public opinion are as wide and varied 
as the means of human communication, or even as the ways of human 
behavior. The chance allusions of oral speech and written correspon- 
dence have an effect far beyond their intention. The public press, the 
drama and motion picture, telegraph, telephone and radio, and the 
various forms of art and literature, have gained tremendously in power 
within the past few years. And there is always the silent influence of 
the mores—no less powerful today than in the simpler life of more 
primitive times. 

The situation is greatly complicated by the fact that advertising 
has become not only an art, but a sort of science. The development 
of psychology has afforded a better understanding of the laws of 
human nature, and a larger control of the means whereby men are 
influenced. This has resulted, under pressure of war conditions, in the 


current attribution of a new and somewhat sinister meaning to the 
word “propaganda,” and in the wide prevalence of the sometimes 
blatant, sometimes insidious, but always one-sided assault upon the 
minds of men which we have come to associate with this term. And 
too generally it is assumed that the only way to meet propaganda is 
to organize counter-propaganda 

The Church undertakes to meet propaganda with the truth. The 
Church’s sole interest in any public question is to learn the facts, and 
upon the basis of the facts, evaluated in the light of the principles of 
the Gospel of Christ, to discover the truth—for the truth alone can 
make men free. 

The cessation of duelling and the abolition of public lotteries are 
instances of the creation of a new public opinion, for which the churches 
were largely responsible. With respect to slavery, the churches, un- 
happily, were divided; but they contributed greatly to the development 
of public opinion on both sides. The most significant example in 
American history of the slow, steady, permanent transformation of 
public opinion is with respect to the prohibition of the liquor traffic. 
Little more than a century ago, the drinking of liquor was a feature of 
all social occasions; at even the ordination of a minister, quantities 
of strong drink were consumed. The passage of the Eighteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the United States, whereby the manufacture 
and sale of intoxicating liquor is prohibited, is the result of a long 
process of education of the public mind in which the public schools, 
the Sunday schools, the churches, and business organizations had a 
share, as well as the temperance organizations which came into ex- 
istence for the specific purpose of combatting the liquor evil. Without 
waiting for the amendment to the national Constitution, thirty-three 
states of the Union had adopted the policy of prohibition, and in other 
states so many counties and towns had voted to prohibit the liquor 
traffic as a matter of local option that before the amendment went into 
effect, 90 per cent. of the territory of the United States, containing 
68 per cent. of the population, was legally dry, either by state or local 
enactment. It is significant that the tidal wave of public sentiment 
which brought about this result began twenty years after the move- 
ment in the late 80’s, which made temperance instruction compulsory 
in the public schools of the various states. When the boys and girls 
to whom the public schools had taught the facts concerning alcohol 
grew to responsible manhood and womanhood, they resolved to put 
an end to its dominance. 


The Church in America, as in other lands, faces a great many prob- 
lems which can be solved only in the light of the principles of the 
Gospel of Christ, but with respect to which the precise application of 
these principles is not immediately clear—problems of economic justice 
and industrial welfare; problems arising out of the relations of the 
races; problems of personal and social morality, especially with respect 
to the relations of the sexes; problems touching the mutual bearings 


salts 50 ome 


of individual and corporate responsibility ; problems of national policy 
and international relations. Where the relevant facts are clearly de- 
termined and known, with respect to any of these problems, it is the 
Church’s duty to accept these facts, to interpret them in the light of 
Christian principles, to give clear public expression to its convictions, 
and to undertake definitely to contribute its share to the education 
of public opinion. Where the facts are not clearly known, and 
especially where there is distrust of the agencies, whereby public opinion 
is being determined, and reason to believe that the truth is being 
concealed or perverted, consciously or unconsciously, in the interest of 
a class, or for the purpose of propaganda, it is the Church’s duty to 
do all that it can to learn the facts, to the point even of undertaking 
definite investigations, if it can stimulate no other responsible agency 
to do so. In the fulfillment of all such functions the Church must 
exercise the most scrupulous care to be no less thorough in investiga- 
tion, catholic in spirit and single-minded in its search for and devotion 
to the truth than its high purpose demands. Too often those who 
speak in the name of religion have thrown themselves open to the re- 
proach of inadequate knowledge, hasty generalization and doctrinaire 
deliverances. 

The Church has no miraculous means of learning facts; the sincerity 
of its purpose will not prevent it from falling into error. It must, in 
its investigations, follow the rules of evidence which guide honest 
minds always and anywhere. It must not be prejudiced by its hopes 
or fears, likes or dislikes. But when the facts in any situation are 
discovered, the Church has a sure basis, in the principles of Jesus, for 
the interpretation of these facts and the determination of the truth. 
What judgment would He render? What, in the light of His prin- 
ciples and motives, ought we to do? What changes in these facts 
does the fulfillment of His purpose for the world demand? In thousands 
of American churches questions such as these, in their application to 
social, economic, and industrial facts, are being discussed not only 
by ministers in the pulpit, but by laymen and laywomen in adult 
classes, discussion groups, midweek meetings and men’s clubs. A 
number of churches have adopted the Forum idea and invite speakers 
representing a wide range of interest and experience to present their 
views freely as a basis for subsequent discussion. 

The Church most surely influences public opinion by living the 
truth while speaking the truth in love. Its appeals from pulpit and 
press accomplish little if they be not incarnate in the lives of those 
who profess the name of Christ. When preaching and practice conflict, 
it is practice that wins. In no way can pagan mores be so effectively 
transformed as by the leavening powers of Christian mores. 

The Christian education of public opinion depends in part upon the 
local church, in part upon the organized effort of denominational 
societies and boards, and in part upon interdenominational cooperation. 
The world is beginning to see the possibilities of the last of these 


ye 


methods. There was a time, not so long ago, when practically the 
whole task of educating public opinion upon the basis of Christian 
principles was left to the local church, with the assistance of religious 
books, tracts, and church papers. The growing complexity of the 
problems involved in the social, economic, and industrial order has 
led more recently to the organization, by most denominations, of 
Boards or Departments of Social Service, Public Morals, Temperance, 
Rural Welfare and the like. It is becoming increasingly clear that 
these denominational departments cannot render their full service to 
the churches which they represent, except by measures of cooperation 
which will, to some degree, pool their resources and make possible 
greater competence in research, more breadth of vision and depth of 
insight, and more prestige in relation to other forces that influence 
public opinion. 

Such considerations as these have led the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America during recent years to give increasing 
attention to developing plans for expressing in a more commanding way 
the mind of the churches with reference to great public issues, in which 
Christian principles are at stake. A Department of Research and Edu- 
cation has been established, designed to serve the various churches as 
a common agency for securing the data which they all alike need, to 
make this material available for the use of all, and to secure a more 
united impact on the public mind. An Information Service is published 
every week, which presents careful analyses of contemporary social, 
industrial, economic and international problems. This service goes to 
a steadily enlarging list of subscribers among ministers, social workers, 
Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. secretaries and laymen. It is also sent 
to the religious press, and its more important articles are often released 
to the daily press as well. 

Two or three illustrations of the way in which the material thus brought 
together by the Department of Research is used may help to make 
clear the significance of this program of cooperation in influencing 
public opinion along certain lines. After the facts with regard to the 
continuance of the twelve-hour day in industry, especially in the manu- 
facture of steel, had been carefully secured, a public statement was is- 
sued, setting forth the moral issues in such a clear light that it was 
published in almost every important newspaper in the country. The 
effect of this step was increased manifold by securing the joint action of 
the National Catholic Welfare Conference and the Central Conference 
of American Rabbis. Within a few weeks thereafter, the greatest steel 
organization in the world announced that, in response to the demand of 
public opinion, it was taking steps toward the abolition of the twelve- 
hour day. 

A second illustration has to do with the problem of race relations 
in the United States, with especial reference to the lynching evil. Dur- 
ing the past three years, the churches, through the Federal Council, 
have been carrying on a special effort against lynching. From 1885 


Ralls pase 


until 1922, there had been an average of over one hundred lynchings 
per year in the United States. During the last two years, this number 
has fallen markedly, until in 1924 there were only sixteen lynchings. 
Into the producing of this result many other factors than the interest 
of the churches entered, but it is generally agreed that the contribution 
made by the churches was a significant one. 


A third illustration concerns the efforts of the churches for the en- 
trance of the United States into the World Court. As the culmination 
of a steady program of popular education on this subject, the Federal 
Council of the Churches presented its point of view in an extended 
hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States 
Senate, at which the official resolutions of the various denominations in 
the country were presented at the same time by their representatives. 


In this way, and by similar conferences with the Department of State, 
the concern of the churches was expressed in a way which made it 
clear that the issue was one in which not simply small Christian groups, 
but practically the entire Christian forces of the country were involved. 

What has been done is only a slight beginning in what needs to be 
done, but is sufficient to indicate possibilities of great Christian achieve- 
ment when the churches definitely set themselves to work together in 
discovering the facts with regard to our social life and in holding them 
up to the light of Christian teaching. 

The fact is that the greatest weakness of the Church with respect 
to the education of public opinion lies in its division into denomina- 
tions and sects, each with a separate mind of its own. It is impossible 
for non-cooperating, even disagreeing churches to command the atten- 
tion and respect of the public press, the theatres and motion picture 
shows, the chambers of commerce, and the various organizations of 
business men and workmen, to say nothing of the legislative and 
administrative officers of the State. If the Christian ideal of life is 
to be understood in these bewildering days, and is to be presented 
effectively and convincingly to the public, the churches must get to- 
gether. They must think together that they may reach a common 
mind; and they must act together to express their common conviction. 
When this takes place, there need be no fear that the public press will 
refuse to cooperate with Christian forces, or that public places of 
amusement will fail to take account of the new temper of the public 
mind. For instance several daily papers in the United States have 
always insisted on telling the truth about plays that were being given 
at the cost of very lucrative advertising. Several theatres in New 
York for a year or so refused admittance to the dramatic editor of 
“Life”, our leading humorous paper, because he insisted on telling the 
truth. At this writing there is a movement in New York City for 
banishing the salacious plays from the theatre and a jury selected 
from a panel of 300 citizens is being set up to censor any suspected 
play that may be on the stage. Without exception the daily papers 
have stood squarely behind this movement for a clean theatre. These 


Billie by es 


instances could be multiplied and they all point to the fact that the 
public press is willing to cooperate with the Christian forces whenever 
those forces bring any real united action against questionable amuse- 
ments of any sort. The churches of America have made a good 
beginning at such cooperation, chiefly through the work of the Federal 
Council of the Churches of Christ in America; but they have a long 
way yet to go. 


VII. The Church and International Education 


“We are members one of another’—nations as well as individuals. 
Even the selfish can no longer doubt that. The past decade has re- 
vealed with arresting clearness the fact of the increasing interdepen- 
dence of the human race under the conditions of modern communica- 
tion and transportation, commerce and industry. 

There stands revealed, too, the fact that the common enemy of all 
mankind is war. More terrible than the demons and principalities of 
darkness that our ancestors strove against, harder to conquer than 
the forces of nature itself, which have so largely yielded to man’s 
understanding and control, now appears the devil that dwells within 
man himself, our human readiness to strike and to hate. For war, 
as the world is now equipped to conduct war, means the suicide of 
civilization. 

War, it has well been said, is a state of mind. It results from habits 
of thinking and feeling, from attitudes of expectation and prepared- 
ness, when something happens to fire the resentment of a people. The 
way to prevent war, therefore, is to change these habits and attitudes. 
One of the surest ways to accomplish these results is by process of 
education and the Church has not only the opportunity but the obliga- 
tion resting upon it to direct intelligently and effectively these processes. 

The American School Peace League was organized in 1908 with the 
avowed purpose “to promote through the schools and the educational 
public of America the interests of international justice and fraternity.” 
To emphasize more positively the constructive responsibilities of 
citizenship in view of the changed world situation, the name of this 
organization was changed in 1919 to the American School Citizenship 
League. Its aim was stated as three-fold: “To define the meaning 
of American citizenship; to stimulate the teaching of American 
citizenship in the schools of the United States; to cooperate with educa- 
tional agencies in foreign countries for the promotion of international 
understanding through the simultaneous training of the coming 
generations of all nations to recognize the efficiency of peaceful agree- 
ments in regulating the constantly increasing relations among the 
States in the world.” 

In the furtherance of these aims the League has published a compre- 
hensive, graded “Course in Citizenship and Patriotism”, which empha- 
sizes the constructive ideals of goodwill and cooperation. It undertakes 
to develop the spirit of these ideals from the first year of school life 


through the widening relationships of the child, acting as a member of 
the home, school, town or city, state, nation, and finally as a member 
of the world family. The Secretary of the League reports that each 
year has registered a larger use of this book in the American public 
schools, and that the book has been sent to many organizations and in- 
dividuals in Europe, Asia and South America in response to appeals for 
information on the teaching of citizenship and international relations. 


The League has also published “An American Citizenship Course in 
United States History”, which consists of a series of five books prepared 
for the elementary schools. The aim of this course, as stated by the 
Secretary of the League, is “to teach the social, economic, and political 
development of the nation, and to show the relations of these three lines 
of activities to similar lines of activities in other countries of the world. 
The Course leads pupils to make correct measurements of human values; 
to see that the problems of developing the resources of the United 
States, of extending industries, of developing education, and of work- 
ing out the unique experiment of a federated nation have been solved 
by the representatives of different nations imbued with the American 
spirit of liberty and justice; to understand that the life of the Union 
has been intertwined with world movements, and that in the future our 
country is destined to play a larger part than before in the councils 
of world affairs; and to realize that the economic and moral welfare 
of our country is consistent with the welfare of humanity, and that 
this demands uninterrupted cooperation among the nations, and the 
reign of reason and justice founded upon international good-will.” 


The League has in view also the preparation of a course in geogra- 
phy which will recognize that the great aim in teaching geography 
should be to make peoples more intelligent about each other, and that 
through geography the social conditions and the national ideals of 
peoples should be taught. It has promoted the annual observance of 
Peace Day, now called International Goodwill Day, in the public 
schools. This day, which commemorates the opening of the first 
Hague Peace Conference, was appointed by the United States Com- 
missioner of Education in 1906, as a day on which the children of 
America should, through suitable celebrations, be made conscious of 
their place in the international fellowship of the peoples of the world. 
The League has offered annual prizes for the best essays by members 
of the senior classes of the high schools and normal schools of the 
United States, upon subjects concerned with citizenship and interna- 
tional relations; and these contests have been thrown open, in recent 
years, to the students of all countries. It has undertaken to further 
mutual understanding by encouraging a system of correspondence 
whereby the school children of America write letters to children of 
their own age in other countries and receive letters from them. 

The public schools of America are still far, however, from accom- 
plishing all that they can and should accomplish toward the develop- 
ment of international goodwill. Admirable as is the work of the 


a SS 


American School Citizenship League, such an organization inevitably 
appears to children as a sort of extra-curriculum interest. More than 
this, there is needed a more effective motivation of the curriculum as 
a whole in the interest of world-brotherhood, and a reshaping of 
curriculum materials and methods with a view to the promotion of a 
truer understanding of the facts of history and a better appreciation 
of the kinship of the peoples and races. 


Recent studies of the textbooks used in our schools show that many 
of these yet reflect those habits of thought and feeling which, in all 
generations, have fostered the disposition to resort to war. Textbooks 
of history generally devote too large a proportion of their space to 
politics, diplomacy and wars, even to the details of battles and cam- 
paigns, and too little to the constructive victories of peace. The result 
is that war is idealized, and that children get the impression that the 
vears during which the nation was at peace were years of relative 
inactivity and stagnation. Some of these books tend to identify patri- 
otism with mere national pride or with jingoism; and they slight, 
misconstrue or even treat unfairly the history of other nations. Text- 
books in geography, again, dwell too exclusively upon physical 
conditions, political boundaries and commercial products, to the neglect 
of the life of the people who inhabit the lands; or if this is described, 
throw into too bold relief those differences in social custom which 
make people of another heritage than our own seem odd and queer. 


There is danger, also, of propaganda in the schools. Every organi- 
zation devoted to a cause is eager, naturally, to use the schools to 
further its purposes; and school boards and administrative officers 
must continually refuse to countenance some new propagandistic ~ 
scheme. Militaristic organizations, however, so readily don the cloak 
of patriotism that it is often hard to draw the line between those 
elements of their program which deserve the recognition and coopera- 
tion of all patriotic citizens, and those elements which are unworthy 
because they tend to perpetuate the reign of force. Racial groups, 
moreover, and groups bound by sentiment to other nations, may seek 
recognition for the points of view which they represent, and thereby 
do injustice to other groups and interests. One such group has re- 
cently issued a document, demanding the discontinuance of the use 
in the public schools of certain textbooks in history, on the ground 
of their alleged distortion of facts in the interest of Anglo-American 
friendship. 

Yet unquestionably the total trend of public education in America 
is toward increasing and more vital provision for the development, 
through the curriculum and life of the schools, of that type of citizen- 
ship which seeks to understand other peoples, to manifest good will 
toward them, and to cooperate with them where this is practicable. 
The best, evidence is to be found in the attitude of the teachers. The 
National Education Association was deeply interested in the Interna- 
tional Conference on Education, which was called, at the invitation of 


eA 


the Government of the Netherlands, to meet at The Hague in Septem- 
ber, 1914. When the outbreak of the World War prevented the meet- 
ing of this Conference, the Association voted that its annual meeting in 
1915 should partake of the nature of an International Congress on Edu- 
cation. Invitations were duly transmitted to all governments having 
representatives accredited to the United States, and to the educational 
associations of these countries; and delegates were present from thirty 
nations. Again, in the summer of 1923, a World Conference on Educa- 
tion was held at San Francisco, attended by representatives from over 
fifty nations, most of whom were delegates from teachers’ organiza- 
tions. The purpose of the Conference, as stated in the call, was: “To 
afford opportunity for educators of the various nations to agree upon 
principles and plans for the promotion of good will and mutual under- 
standing, which are universal in their application and which can be 
adopted as a definite program to be carried out in the schools throughout 
the world.” This Conference resulted in the organization of a World 
Federation of National Education Associations. Its concluding resolu- 
tion was: “Be it finally resolved: that the economic, social and intel- 
lectual welfare of humanity demands uninterrupted cooperation among 
the nations of the earth, and the reign of reason and justice founded 
upon international good-will; that such teaching will show the high 
significance of those things which enter into a true conception of civil- 
ization; and that the acceptance and promulgation of these ideals will 
form a sound foundation for the promotion of higher spiritual values 
in the schools of the world.” 

The development of world-friendship appears to be so natural and 
intrinsic a function of the church and the church school as to call for 
no discussion. The churches of Christ transcend and cut across 
national boundaries. They are the bearers of the evangel of peace on 
earth and good will among men. They are at liberty to accept with- 
out reservation Christ’s principle of love. No organization of recent 
years, it would seem, is more natural or should be more effective, than 
the World Alliance for International Friendship through the Churches. 


Yet, even in their own life, the churches have not realized the world- 
friendship toward which the spirit of the Master moves them. They 
have conceived their relations to the people of other nations in terms 
of foreign missions almost exclusively; and have too often conceived 
missions in terms analogous to conquest or colonization rather than 
in terms of Christian brotherhood. They have given men and money 
to convey the message of the Gospel to the inhabitants of other lands; 
and have sometimes failed to give, with men and money, the friend- 
ship of heart and will. So strange things come to pass, such as the 
holding in tutelage, on mission fields, of native churches which aspire 
to control their own affairs; the sending of rum and missionaries on 
the same ship to the same people; the insistence of nominally Chris- 
tian governments upon their right to traffic in opium; the passing, 
without conference, of immigration laws which offer gratuitous insult 


Sin Y pte 


to a friendly nation. The churches are not directly responsible for 
many such things; but if they had better fulfilled their function as 
ambassadors of the gospel of world-brotherhood, perhaps business or- 
ganizations and governments would better understand the application 
of Christian principles to our common life. 


The development of the newer type of church school, described in 
an earlier section of this report, makes possible a richer and more 
effective program for the education of children in world-friendship. 
Under the older type of Sunday school organizations, little was done 
except to organize children into missionary societies or bands, whose 
activities lay quite outside of the regular series of lessons and were 
generally confined to the raising and giving of money to foreign 
missionary enterprises. Such a program conveyed little or no instruc- 
tion, and even its activities were of little educational value. The 
present movement to organize church schools whose curriculum is 
pupil-centered, inclusive and founded upon activity, throughout the 
week days as well as on Sunday, makes it possible to afford to the 
experiences and enterprises of world-friendship and world-service their 
normal and proper place in the Christian education of children. The 
same materials and methods, in this field, are open to the church 
school as are open to the public school. While the public school has 
the advantage of possessing a much larger share of the child’s time, 
the church school has the advantage of access to the full range of 
Christian facts and appeal to definitely Christian motives. 


It is interesting to note that several denominations have introduced 
courses on international good will into their regular Sunday-School 
Quarterlies. In addition to this, special courses in international good 
will have been prepared by the Commission on International Justice 
and Good-will of the Federal Council of Churches, which have been 
widely use as extra-studies in Bible Classes and in Men’s and Women’s 
Study Groups. The various Foreign Missionary Boards have prepared 
courses in international good will which have been widely used by 
the local groups of the Missionary Societies. Fifteen years ago Dr. 
Josiah Strong, prepared a series of 52 lessons, one for each week in 
the year, on international peace, in which the whole subject was care- 
fully surveyed and questions for discussion inserted. ‘This was circu- 
lated by The Church Peace Union and widely used in the churches. 
A book of study courses on international good will has just been 
written by two professors in Darmtouth College for the use of study 
groups. At this writing the Commission on International Relationships 
of the National Congregational Council is preparing a course of study 
for the Congregational churches during the Lenten season. There are 
many other instances where these courses are being prepared, but these 
will suffice for illustration. 

If Christian education is to make its full contribution to the develop- 
ment of world-friendship and international good will, the churches of 


BA ate 


Christ throughout the various nations of the world must work to- 
gether. The public-school teachers of the nations, we have seen, have 
found it desirable to organize a World Federation of National Educa- 
tion Associations. There is room and need for a similar international 
agency in the field of Christian education. Just what its form and 
organization should be, is a problem which this Conference may well 
consider. The present World’s Sunday School Association is too 
narrow in scope. The International Missionary Council comes nearer, 
perhaps, to furnishing an analogue. 


There are also eight or ten missionary magazines of a very high 
standard which are making an invaluable contribution to international 
goodwill through their interpretation of the peoples of other lands. The 
most outstanding of these magazines are as follows: 


The Missionary Review of the World, The Missionary Herald, The 
Spirit of Missions, Missions,. The Voice of Missions, The Missionary 
Survey; The World Call, The Moslem World, Women’s Work. 


There is no clearer call to Christian unity than that which comes 
from the childhood and youth of the world. We must not abandon 
our children to schemes of education that ignore religion. Can we 
honestly, in the name of Christ, educate them to perpetuate the over- 
emphases upon differences that have marred the life of His Church 
and delayed the coming of His Kingdom? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Single books which cover, in a general way, the ground of this report are: 


Brown, William A., The Church in America, New York, 1922. 


Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, The Teaching Work 
of the Church, New York, 1923. 


Bound proceedings of “The Religious Education Association.” 
Bound proceedings of “The Christian Education.” 


The following books are grouped according to the sections of the report: 


I. The Educational Function of the Christian Church 


Cope, Henry F., Religious Education in the Church, New York, 1918. 
Faunce, W. H. P., The Educational Ideal in the Ministry, New York, 1918 


II. Public Education in the United States 
Brown, S. W., The Secularization of American Education, New 
York, 1912. 


Chapman, J. C. and Counts G. S., The Principles of Education, Boston, 
1924. 


Cubberley, E. P., Public Education in the United States, Boston, 1919. 
Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, New York, 1916 

Dewey, John and Evelyn, Schools of Tomorrow, New York, 1916. 
Rugh and others, Moral Training in the Public Schools, New York, 1907. 


Rugh and others, The Essential Place of Religion in Education, Ann 
Arbor, 1916. 


de Ye Sai 


III. The Present Status of the Church School in the United States 

Burns, J. A., Catholic Education, New York, 1917 

Burns, J. A., The Growth and Development of the Catholic School 
System in the United States, New York, 1912, 

Betts, George H., How to Teach Religion, New York, 1919. 

Betts, George H., The Curriculum of Religious Education, New York, 
1924, 

Coe, George A., A Social Theory of Religious Education, New York, 
1917. 


Cope, Henry F., Religious Education in the Family, Chicago, 1915 

Cope, Henry F., Organizing the Church School, New York, 1923. 

Cope, Henry F., The Week Day Church School, New York, 1921. 

Cope, Henry F., Weekday Religious Education: A Survey and Discus- 
sion of Activities and Problems, New York, 1922. 

Stout, J. E., The Organization and Administration of Religious Educa- 
tion, New York, 1922. 

Thwing, Charles F., The Family; an historical and social study, 
Boston, 1913. 

Weigle, L. A., The Training of Children in the Christian Family, 
Boston, 1922. 


IV. The Church and Higher Education 

Thwing, Charles F., History of Higher Education in America, New 
York, 1906. 

Thwing, Charles F., The American College: What it is and What it 
May Become, New York, 1914. 

Welch, Herbert, The Christian College, New York, 1916. 

King, Henry C. The Christian College, New York, 1916. 

Nicholson, Thos., The Christian College, New York, 1916. 

Files of Christian Education and Religious Education. 


V. The Church Training Its Ministers 
Faculty of the Yale Divinity School, Education for Christian Service, 
New Haven, 1922. 
Kelly, Robert L., Theological Education in America, New York, 1924. 


VI. The Church and Public Opinion 
Ellwood, C. A., The Reconstruction of Religion, New York, 1922. 
Lippman, W., Public Opinion, New York, 1922. 
McConnell, F. J.. The Preacher and the People, New York, 1922. 


VII. The Church and International Education 
Cabot, Ella L. and others, Course in Citizenship and Patriotism, 
New York, 1918. 
Lobingier, J. L., World Friendship Through the Church School, 
Chicago, 1923. 





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